MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Before we begin the daily routine, the subject for this
evening's late debate was submitted by
the honourable member for Halifax Citadel:

Therefore be it resolved that the government has failed to address the economic and
demographic challenges faced by rural
Nova Scotia.

This will be debated this evening at 6:00 p.m.

We will begin the daily routine.

PRESENTING AND READING PETITIONS

MR. SPEAKER: The honourable member for Shelburne.

MR. CECIL O'DONNELL: Mr. Speaker, I beg leave to table a petition signed by 1,659 fish
plant workers in Nova Scotia
stating, "We the undersigned . . . the Fish Plant Workers of Nova Scotia request Nova Scotia's
Minister of Agriculture and
Fisheries to immediately begin the process of setting up a meeting with the Federal Minister of
Fisheries and Oceans Canada
to discuss an immediate financial-aid package for Nova Scotia fish plant workers that will enable
them to maintain their way
of life across Nova Scotia." I have affixed my signature to this petition.

HON. CECIL CLARKE: Mr. Speaker, I beg leave to table a petition that was presented to
me and I have affixed my
signature. It is relating to Family Violence Prevention Week and it contains the signatures of
4,121 Cape Bretoners who
have signed a personal commitment to working towards ending family violence.

MR. SPEAKER: The petition is tabled.

PRESENTING REPORTS OF COMMITTEES

TABLING REPORTS, REGULATIONS AND OTHER
PAPERS

STATEMENTS BY MINISTERS

GOVERNMENT NOTICES OF MOTION

INTRODUCTION OF BILLS

NOTICES OF MOTION

MR. SPEAKER: The honourable member for Cole Harbour-Eastern Passage.

RESOLUTION NO. 1188

MR. KEVIN DEVEAUX: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move
the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas the Eastern Passage Education Centre Phoenix hockey team had another successful
season; and

Whereas the Phoenix went undefeated for the year, finishing first in their league; and

Whereas the Phoenix won the Akerley Zone Championship and finished second in the capital
region;

Therefore be it resolved that this House congratulate the Eastern Passage Education Centre's
Phoenix hockey team, coach
Jean Robert, assistant coach Grant Walsh and all the players and volunteers for a successful
season.

Whereas the Hilden Fire Brigade held their annual awards banquet and ceremony on April
24th, in which they were so kind to
invite their local MLA to attend a wonderful evening which included a hot meal;

Therefore be it resolved that all MLAs of this House commend Fire Chief Mike Arseneau, the
executive and firefighters from
the Hilden Fire Brigade for their passion and zeal in responding to alarms when required.

Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.

MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.

Is it agreed?

It is agreed.

Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

The honourable member for Hants East.

RESOLUTION NO. 1191

MR. JOHN MACDONELL: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall
move the adoption of the
following resolution:

Whereas baseball has long been the sport of summer throughout North America; and

Whereas Baseball Canada will be holding tryouts for the women's national team from May
21st to May 24th; and

Whereas Nadine Wood of Elmsdale has been one of the only two Nova Scotians invited to
the tryouts;

Therefore be it resolved that this House of Assembly congratulate Nadine Wood on her
opportunity to try out for the
National Women's Baseball Team and wish her good luck in her attempt to make the team.

Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

The honourable Leader of the Liberal Party.

RESOLUTION NO. 1192

MR. WAYNE GAUDET: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move
the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas the Clare Acadiens Bantam Team participated in the SEDMHA International Minor
Hockey Tournament in
Dartmouth, from April 8 to April 11, 2004; and

Whereas the team played against Dartmouth in the Odyssey Division Final; and

Whereas the SEDMHA International Hockey Tournament is one of the largest and most
respected multi-level hockey
tournaments in North America;

Therefore be it resolved that the members of this House of Assembly congratulate the Clare
Acadiens Bantam team and their
coaches for winning the Odyssey Division final during the 27th Annual SEDMHA
International Minor Hockey Tournament.

Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.

MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.

Is it agreed?

It is agreed.

Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

MR. RONALD CHISHOLM: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall
move the adoption of the
following resolution:

Whereas Prime Minister Paul Martin is under enormous stress right now as to when to call a
federal general election,
knowing full well the result will be far from what was forecast last November; and

Whereas a Canadian Press story reports skittish Liberal MPs are urging the Prime Minister to
fire some of his people because
the B-team is in charge, and they are wrecking the joint; and

Whereas one Ontario Liberal MP referred to the Prime Minister's current alleged brain trust
as the no-brainer trust, going
one step further to call them the mistake-a-day club;

Therefore be it resolved that MLAs in this House of Assembly, especially the Third Party
members, encourage the Prime
Minister to alleviate his stress level now by calling an election and facing the electorate instead of
parading around the
country, pretending he is actually governing.

Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice. (Interruption)

MR. SPEAKER: The notice is tabled.

The honourable member for Sackville-Cobequid.

RESOLUTION NO. 1194

MR. DAVID WILSON (Sackville-Cobequid): Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a
future day I shall move the
adoption of the following resolution:

Whereas the Knox Amateur Dinner Theatre Players have been entertaining members of Knox
United Church and residents of
Sackville for many years; and

Whereas this year's production, Knox Tale Soup, written by Paul Cooper and Malcolm
Johnson, and directed by Vanessa
Voerman, is sure to be a crowd pleaser; and

Whereas the performances on April 30th and May 1st at Knox
United Church in Lower Sackville will continue the tradition of
bringing great family entertainment to the community;

Therefore be it resolved that the Nova Scotia Legislature send best wishes for a successful
performance to writers Paul
Cooper and Malcolm Johnson, director Vanessa Voerman, and all the members of the Knox
Amateur Dinner Theatre Players
for their upcoming performance of Knox Tale Soup.

Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.

MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.

Is it agreed?

It is agreed.

Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

The honourable member for Dartmouth South-Portland Valley on an introduction.

MS. MARILYN MORE: Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to introduce, in the east
gallery, 11 students and two
leaders from Thomas Aquinas Centre. Their leaders are Shelly MacNeil and Dae Jon, and I ask
the members of the
Legislature to give them a warm welcome. (Applause)

[12:15 p.m.]

MR. SPEAKER: We certainly welcome our special guest to the gallery today and hope they
enjoy the proceedings.

The honourable member for Halifax Clayton Park on an introduction.

MS. DIANA WHALEN: Mr. Speaker, I would like to draw the attention of the House to the
Speaker's Gallery where there
are two visitors from the Halifax Clayton Park riding, if you would like to stand. Their names are
Kathy MacLean and Joel
Lemoyre, and I would like us to welcome them to the House, please. (Applause)

MR. SPEAKER: We welcome our guests to the gallery.

The honourable member for Cape Breton West.

MR. RUSSELL MACKINNON: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I
shall move the adoption of the
following resolution:

Whereas the Rubber Association of Canada will sponsor the first-ever Be Tire Smart Week
from April 25 to May 5, 2004;
and

Whereas it is a great opportunity to increase the awareness of the importance and benefits of
proper tire inflation and
maintenance; and (Interruptions)

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

MR. MACKINNON: Whereas by following a few simple steps (Interruptions)

I can't do it, Mr. Speaker.

MR. SPEAKER: We won't ask the honourable member to repeat that.

The honourable member for Kings North.

RESOLUTION NO. 1195

MR. MARK PARENT: I hope that doesn't become contagious, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the
following resolution:

Whereas the Canadian people are looking for a more responsive Senate, one whose
membership is based on elections by the
people of the province the individual represents; and

Whereas reform of the Senate, otherwise known as the Chamber of sober second thought has
been the subject of much
debate by all political Parties and the Canadian public for decades; and

Whereas the Prime Minister's action plan for democratic reform states that "Democratic
institutions must constantly adapt
and change in order to ensure that the process continues to work the way it was intended.";

Therefore be it resolved that all members of this House urge the Prime Minister to refrain
from making any new
appointments on Nova Scotia's behalf to the Canadian Senate until that representative is an
elected representative.

MR. DARRELL DEXTER: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Yesterday during Question
Period I tabled a letter to the
Minister of Transportation and Public Works. It later came to my attention that although the
Department of Transportation
and Public Works had discussions with this person based on the letter, the minister had not, in
fact, received the letter. I
spoke with him earlier about this. I would like to withdraw the letter and I will instead table the
correspondence between
Transportation and Public Works and express my apology to the minister if that caused him any
embarrassment. (Applause)

MR. SPEAKER: I thank the honourable member for that information.

The honourable member for Preston.

RESOLUTION NO. 1196

MR. KEITH COLWELL: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move
the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas concerns about the management of the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation have been
raised both in committee and in
this House; and

Whereas neither the chairman of the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation Board nor the minister
has provided adequate
responses to any of these concerns; and

Whereas the profitability of the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation has a direct effect on the
revenues of the province and will
influence the government's so-called balanced budget;

Therefore be it resolved that the Minister responsible for the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation
provide this House with a
complete and detailed account of the management irregularities and the steps being taken to
rectify them.

MR. RICHARD HURLBURT: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall
move the adoption of the
following resolution:

Whereas the Municipality of the District of Yarmouth was incorporated in 1879 when
provincial legislation brought forth
municipal incorporation to all of Nova Scotia; and

Whereas the Municipality of the District of Yarmouth kicked off their 125th
Anniversary celebration on April 1st with the
reception at the Yarmouth County Museum; and

Whereas a variety of events are scheduled throughout the coming year to celebrate this
milestone and to celebrate the people
who make Yarmouth such a wonderful place to live;

Therefore be it resolved that all members of this House recognize the 125th
Anniversary of the Municipality of the District of
Yarmouth and express their appreciation to all the dedicated men and women who have served
the municipality for the past
125 years.

Mr. Speaker, I would ask for waiver.

MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.

Is it agreed?

It is agreed.

Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

The honourable Leader of the Official Opposition.

RESOLUTION NO. 1198

MR. DARRELL DEXTER: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall
move the adoption of the
following resolution:

Whereas the Romanow Commission on the Future of Health Care concluded that public
funding, delivery and administration
of medically necessary health care was the most efficient approach, as well as the most
cost-effective and most in line with
Canadian values; and

Whereas in recent days the federal Health Minister seemed to open the door to increased
private-for-profit health care; and

Whereas, in response, other provinces and the Prime Minister have reaffirmed the Romanow
Commission recommendations
to renew Medicare;

Therefore be it resolved that this House reaffirms the Romanow Commission
recommendation that, rather than subsidizing
private facilities with public dollars, government should choose to ensure that the public system
has sufficient capacity to be
universally accessible.

Mr. Speaker, I would ask for waiver.

MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.

Is it agreed?

It is agreed.

Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

The honourable member for Kings West.

RESOLUTION NO. 1199

MR. LEO GLAVINE: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the
adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas Nova Scotia's post-secondary students have student debt loads considerably higher
than the national average; and

Whereas tuition at our universities and NSCC continue to escalate above the national
average; and

Whereas student debt burden is very onerous, and the misguided editorial of The Daily News
makes no mention of Nova
Scotia statistics, students' line of credit and other personal arrangements to finish their
education;

Therefore be it resolved that members of this House commit to the reality of student debt
burden in Nova Scotia and a
course of action that makes university education and its funding a higher priority.

Mr. Speaker, I would ask for waiver.

MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.

Is it agreed?

I hear a No.

The notice is tabled.

The honourable Minister of Energy.

RESOLUTION NO. 1200

HON. CECIL CLARKE: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move
the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas five students from Memorial Composite High School in Sydney Mines will compete
against students from across
the country at the 10th Canadian Skills Competition in Winnipeg, Manitoba;
and

Whereas Kathy Lantz, A. J. Ford, Stephen Sorrey, Brandon Inder and Norman Samways will
travel to the national
competition in May; and

Whereas the students will be accompanied by Memorial High School vocational technical
program coordinator and team
leader Fred Martell;

Therefore be it resolved that members of this House join me in congratulating Kathy Lantz,
A. J. Ford, Stephen Sorrey,
Brandon Inder and Norman Samways on being selected to attend the 10th
Canadian Skills Competition and wish them much
success at this event.

Whereas Chris Stanley has had an extraordinary university career, both athletically and
academically, being named to the CIS
all-rookie team, twice earning all-Canadian honours, three times earning academic all-Canadian
recognition and was named
the Atlantic University Sport Men's Hockey MVP the last two years; and

Whereas Chris Stanley because of his leadership both on and off the ice in the 200-04 season
was Dalhousie's nominee for
the James Bayer Award and was the Atlantic University Sport nominee for the TSN Dr. Randy
Gregg Award, won the Dr.
Bill Godfrey award for best demonstrating the spirit of intercollegiate hockey, was Dalhousie's
Male Athlete of the Year,
and President's Award winner;

Therefore be it resolved that all members congratulate Chris Stanley on his individual awards
and nominations for his four-year contribution to the Dalhousie men's hockey program and for
demonstrating in great measure the best characteristics of
a university athlete.

Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.

MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.

Is it agreed?

It is agreed.

Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

The honourable member for Halifax Atlantic.

RESOLUTION NO. 1204

MS. MICHELE RAYMOND: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall
move the adoption of the
following resolution:

Whereas Captain Jack Arnell, Harbourmaster at Hamilton, Bermuda, knew a good thing
when he saw it; and

Whereas Captain Arnell, like other Bermudians, thought that his family would appreciate the
chance to spend the heat of
summer in the cooler climate of Nova Scotia, and therefore in 1929 bought land at Purcells Cove;
and

Whereas the people of Purcells Cove have for generations enjoyed the Arnell lands, hiking
back to Flat Lake, exploring the
old quarries and swimming at Purcells Pond;

Therefore be it resolved that this House commend the seven sons of Captain Arnell's daughter
Jill, for their prescience and
generosity in donating this piece of wild land in the city to the Nova Scotia Nature Trust for
permanent preservation.

Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.

MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.

Is it agreed?

It is agreed.

Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

The honourable member for Annapolis.

RESOLUTION NO.1205

MR. STEPHEN MCNEIL: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall
move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas in the early dawn hours of April 29, 1944, 60 years ago today, the HMCS
Athabaskan was struck by a torpedo and
plunged to the depths of the English Channel; and

Whereas 128 Canadians gave their lives in service to their country that day, including her
Captain, Lieutenant Commander
J.H. Stubbs, and another 38 of the crew were taken as prisoners of war; and

Whereas we continue to owe those men and their families a great debt of gratitude for the
sacrifice they made;

Therefore be it resolved that the members of this House recognize the anniversary of this
most tragic event and honour the
men who served on the HMCS Athabaskan.

MR. JERRY PYE: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the
adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas volunteers give so generously of their energies, skills and family time and are the
unsung heroes and backbones of
our communities; and

Whereas April 18th to April 24th is National Volunteer Week,
a week dedicated to honouring many volunteers who are the
key of community success; and

Whereas Doris MacKaracher was recognized by the Halifax Regional Municipality for her
many efforts in the community,
including Past President of the ABC Non-Profit Health Care Association, Team Leader of the
Dartmouth Boys and Girls
Club Breakfast Program, Membership Coordinator of the Lamont Scottish Clan Society,
organizer of the Holy Trinity
Clothing Depot and Treasurer of District 9 Citizens Association;

Therefore be it resolved that all members of the Nova Scotia Legislature recognize the
important role volunteers play in our
lives and pay tribute to Doris MacKaracher for her outstanding volunteer service, which has
contributed to the well-being of
the community of Dartmouth North.

Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.

MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.

Is it agreed?

It is agreed.

Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

The honourable member for Pictou East.

RESOLUTION NO. 1208

MR. JAMES DEWOLFE: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move
the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas without the valued medical expertise of orthopaedic surgeons Dr. Chabra and Dr.
Haider, and organizer Diane
MacKenzie, Pictou County's first Hip Hop Hooray event would not have been possible this past
Sunday; and

[12:30 p.m.]

Whereas the Hip Hop Hooray event is a symbolic walk which raises money for orthopaedic
joints, education and equipment;
and

Whereas the Pictou County event saw 93 registered walkers take part, all who have had
replacement joints, with another 250
people in attendance to show their support;

Therefore be it resolved that MLAs compliment organizer Diane MacKenzie and all
participants for their hand in raising
more than $20,000 in Pictou County's first Hip Hop Hooray event.

Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.

MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.

Is it agreed?

It is agreed.

Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

The honourable member for member for Pictou West.

RESOLUTION NO.1209

MR. CHARLES PARKER: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall
move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas the Salt Springs 4-H Club in Pictou County has been active for many years; and

Whereas over those years many volunteer leaders have contributed to the host of programs
that are offered; and

Whereas the club is sending two members to Manitoba on the 4-H interprovincial exchange
for 10 days this spring.

Therefore be it resolved that this Legislature congratulate Sarah Jean Lees and Mary White
for being selected for the 4-H
interprovincial exchange and wish them and the Salt Springs 4-H Club continued success.

Mr. Speaker, I request waiver of notice.

MR. SPEAKER: There has been a request for waiver.

Is it agreed?

It is agreed.

Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion is carried.

The honourable member for Cape Breton Nova.

RESOLUTION NO. 1210

MR. GORDON GOSSE: Mr. Speaker, I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move
the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas Cape Breton Screaming Eagles goaltender, Martin Houle was selected a first team
All-Star in March of this year;
and

Whereas he was also presented the Jacques Plante trophy awarded to the goaltender with the
best individual goals-against
average; and

Whereas he finished the regular season play with a record of 34 wins, 15 losses, 1 tie with a
goals-against average of 2.32;

Therefore be it resolved that the Members of the Legislative Assembly congratulate Martin
Houle for his noteworthy
accomplishments during a very successful season.

MR. SPEAKER: The honourable Minister of Transportation and Public Works.

HON. RONALD RUSSELL: Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Minister of Justice, I beg leave to
table the report of the Chief
Electoral Officer on the recommended changes to the boundary between the electoral districts of
Bedford, and Waverley-Fall
River-Beaver Bank.

MR. SPEAKER: The report is tabled.

Question Period will begin at 12:35 p.m. and end at 1:35 p.m.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

ORAL QUESTIONS PUT BY MEMBERS

MR. SPEAKER: The honourable Leader of the Official Opposition.

HEALTH - QE II SURGERY: REVIEW -
DETAILS

MR. DARRELL DEXTER: Mr. Speaker, there is a substantial public concern about

the apparent breakdown in protocols around the safety of surgeries and surgical equipment at
the QE II. Surgeries were
postponed, surgical instruments were quarantined, and 26 patients were notified that they may
have been exposed to
potentially contaminated equipment.

Mr. Speaker, it's clear that preventative steps should have taken place immediately upon the
discovery of a suspicious lab
specimen. The hospital's CEO has admitted that the system did not work. A breakdown of this
nature is naturally very
upsetting to the patients involved, and also to people's confidence in the protocols that protect
patient safety. My question
is, will the minister tell this House what the investigation is that is currently underway, who is
conducting it, and under what
authority?

HON. ANGUS MACISAAC: Mr Speaker, the honourable member has brought forward a
question which of course is very
timely and appropriate. I can say that we have been working very closely with Capital Health and
Health Canada. The
information that became available yesterday afternoon is information that is of concern to all of
us. We are satisfied that as
information became available, Capital Health reacted appropriately, and we have confidence in
that.

However, as the honourable member pointed out, the process that was in place with respect
to the sharing of information is a
situation that deserves a review. We will be conducting that review, it will be conducted by the
Chief Medical Officer of the
Department of Health; by Capital Health; and by Health Canada. We want to receive the results of
that review in a very
timely fashion.

MR. DEXTER: Mr. Speaker, I don't think that the Minister of Health actually got to the
answer that I was looking for. The
province's obligation of course is to ensure that hospitals have the human and financial resources
necessary to meet the
required standards for patient safety, including the safety of equipment. I don't think the Minister
of Health can take a hand-off approach with respect to this, so I'm going to repeat the question,
Mr. Speaker. What we want to know is, what
investigation is underway, who is conducting it, and what authority?

MR. MACISAAC: Mr. Speaker, I've indicated the early part of the investigations that were
going on were the
communications that were taking place between the department, in particular, the Chief Medical
Officer of the Department
of Health of the province and Capital Health. As information became available relative to the
instruments in question,
appropriate action was taken. The investigation that will continue as I have just described it, will
be performed under the
authorities that I have relative to the administration of health for this province. The report will be
made to me, and I will
make that report public as soon as I receive it.

MR. DEXTER: Mr. Speaker, This is not the first time that surgical instruments and other
health equipment have come into
question. Recently surgeries were cancelled at the Colchester Regional Hospital when staff
identified a residue on surgical
equipment. Nova Scotians deserve assurance that the reasons for these breakdowns in hospital
protocols will be properly
identified and corrected. My question for the minister is, what is the minister prepared to do to
ensure that there is a
transparent investigation, and that there is regular reporting to the public with respect to this
issue?

MR. MACISAAC: Mr. Speaker, the situation, as difficult as it is, is a situation which
obviously presents an opportunity to
learn from the circumstances that have occurred. It is our intention to learn as much as we can
from this, and to share that,
not just with the health authorities in the province, but with the public.

We also have involved Health Canada to assist us because indeed there are lessons here that
could possibly have a nation-wide application. It is our attention to learn as much as we can from
this situation and indeed, the honourable member has
made reference to other situations, and we need to ensure that we put in place appropriate
protocols throughout our system
and that will be my objective with respect to this investigation. As I said, as unfortunate as this
situation is, it is an
opportunity for us to put right, processes throughout

the province, and we are taking that view of it and, as I said, Health Canada, I believe, will
provide us with some level of
nationwide credibility with respect to this process.

MR. SPEAKER: The honourable member for Glace Bay.

HEALTH - QE II CJD CASE: DEP. MIN. - VISIT
CONFIRM

MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Health.
Today we learned that the lines
of communication broke down, with respect to the probable case of CJD at the QE II. While the
case is still probable, it's
absolutely mandatory that the people of Nova Scotia can trust their health care system. It would
appear that, given media
reports today, this trust has been somewhat shaken. According to the Health Act, the Deputy
Minister of Health, when he
considers is necessary, may visit any part of the province to investigate any matter that he
considers relevant to the public
health. My question to the minister is, could the minister please confirm whether the Deputy
Minister of Health exercised this
power and visited the QE II when he first became aware of the situation?

HON. ANGUS MACISAAC: Mr. Speaker, what I can tell the honourable member and the
House is that the Acting Deputy
Minister of Health - because the deputy minister is out of the province - has been on this situation
from the very first. The
Chief Medical Officer of Health for the province has been involved in the situation from day one.
There have been constant
communications between the deputy minister's office and Capital Health, as well as the Chief
Medical Officer of Health, and
Capital Health with respect to this, and the involvement of Health Canada. I cannot say whether
there was an actual physical
visit to the facility or not, but I can certainly assure the House and the people of this province that
the deputy minister has
made this his priority since he first learned of it.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): Mr. Speaker, despite the fact that the minister issued a
press release stating that the
deputy minister would be remaining on the job until June 1st, he may not have
been present to do his job as outlined in the
Health Act. There's been a void at the highest level that has resulted in some serious damage when
it comes to whether or
not people can trust our health care system. My question to the minister is, while this serious
situation exists at the QE II,
who exactly is steering the ship at the Department of Health?

MR. MACISAAC: Mr. Speaker, I'm steering that ship, and I have the able (Interruptions) I
have the very able assistance of
the Acting Deputy Minister of Health for this province, Dr. Rippey and the senior staff of the
department. As I indicated,
they have been making this their priority since they first learned of it.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Glace Bay): Mr. Speaker, the fact that the minister boasts about
steering that ship leaves something
to be desired. That ship may be on the rocks. I'm left only to repeat that the trust has been shaken,
the trust of the public has
been shaken, and

this minister has done nothing here today to restore that trust. There are spin doctors and the
minister, all that's left holding
the credibility of this government together when it comes to the handling of the CJD issue. Lines
of communication broke
down, the end result is that 26 people are living in fear, that is until the Premier changes the
figures again. My final question
to the minister is, will the minister immediately instruct the Chief Medical Officer of Health, and
senior staff in his
department to begin a complete investigation of the CJD situation at the QE II?

MR. MACISAAC: Mr. Speaker, I won't go there. What I can tell the House is that I have, in
fact, as I indicated in answer
to a previous question, put in place an investigative team that is going to review all of the
processes that have taken place
and, indeed, all of the decisions and reactions relative to this particular situation. As I indicated,
that team will involve the
Chief Medical Officer of Health for this province, it will involve Health Canada, and it will involve
Capital Health. I indicated
that the object of this is to learn as much as we can, to improve and put in place processes that
will be failsafe for the future.
That is what we are going to accomplish, and I can tell all of the people of this province that as
information became
available, appropriate action was taken. What we need to ensure is that we have a better system
of monitoring and sharing
that information.

[12:45 p.m.]

MR. SPEAKER: The honourable Leader of the Official Opposition.

PREM.: MAR. LIFE TAKEOVER -
DETAILS

MR. DARRELL DEXTER: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Premier. Yesterday the
takeover by Manulife Financial of
Maritime Life was made official, having garnered regulatory approval. While this was going on,
no one from this
government made any statement or gave any reassurance to the families of those employed by
Maritime Life or the many
local companies with whom they do business. In fact, the employees were left to wonder and
speculate about their future and
the cuts they expect in the corporate office and investment and actuarial divisions. The company is
one of Halifax's largest
employers so I want to ask the Premier, why is it that this government was silent on what the
future holds for these
employees and their families?

HON. JOHN HAMM (The Premier): Mr. Speaker, the government has been concerned in a
very, very major way, ever since
we received the news that the headquarters for Maritime Life would no longer be in Nova Scotia.
From that early time, the
government has worked to investigate, promote and identify opportunities for all of the
employees of Maritime Life, to
achieve the put-backs that we must now be looking at, as we are in the process of losing what
was a very important head
office in Nova Scotia. I can assure the member opposite and, through him, the people of Nova
Scotia, and in particular the

employees, we are doing all of those things that government can do to provide replacement
opportunities within that
corporate umbrella.

MR. DEXTER: Mr. Speaker, each and every one of the employees at Maritime Life has
helped build our economy and the
government should be working actively to keep these jobs in Nova Scotia. The loss of up to 1,100
jobs in this city and the
province would be an economic blow, and once these employees and their families are forced to
move elsewhere for work,
we will be hard pressed to lure them back. My question for the Premier is, he has known now of
this impending merger for
nearly eight months, when does his government expect that the uncertainty about the future of
Maritime Life will be
resolved?

THE PREMIER: Mr. Speaker, I refer that to the Acting Minister of Economic
Development.

HON. CECIL CLARKE: Mr. Speaker, I want to reiterate the comments of the Premier on
this matter and assure the
honourable member and all members of this House that the government has taken this seriously
since we became aware of it.
I think we would agree that all these employees have a sophisticated set of skills and ones that
the Minister of Economic
Development has taken a direct interest in working. We will continue to do what we are doing,
and that is to work on the
solid business case that those employees provide for us for new activity here, in Halifax.

MR. DEXTER: Mr. Speaker, members of this House are well aware that corporate
headquarters and the associated jobs are
of particular importance to local economies, this makes the situation with Maritime Life that much
more important. My
question is, will the Premier tell this House what personal involvement he has in ensuring Nova
Scotia retains as many of
these jobs as possible?

THE PREMIER: Mr. Speaker, I welcome that opportunity. First of all when the information
became available to the
Premier's office, that we immediately started to coordinate an action team to work and provide as
much remediation, relative
to the loss of the headquarters. I personally was involved in some of the meetings and received
briefings and had
opportunities to discuss this with officials of the soon-to-be company. So there was very active
participation by the
Premier's office, by myself, in those two aspects. First of all, direct communication with those
involved and, secondly,
coordinating a response.

MR. SPEAKER: The honourable Leader of the Liberal Party.

PREM.: GOV'T. (N.S.)/GOV'T. (CAN.)/HRM -
INTERACTIONS

MR. WAYNE GAUDET: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Premier. The Premier is rapidly
losing the confidence of all
Nova Scotians. More importantly, Nova Scotians are learning they can't trust this government.
The Premier says he wants
minority government to

work, but his actions suggest otherwise. When it comes to the federal government, this
Premier does not negotiate. Instead,
he plays the blame game.

Yesterday the Halifax Regional Municipality issued a press release indicating that the
province is not co-operating with the
establishment of a Capital Transportation Authority. Another release from HRM indicates the
province and the municipality
are in dispute over the assessment of the Imperial Oil Refinery in Dartmouth. So my first question
to the Premier is, when is
the Premier going to step down from his high horse and start building bridges instead of burning
them with other levels of
government?

THE PREMIER: Mr. Speaker, I welcome the question because the Imperial Oil Refinery is a
very important issue. We have
seen one refinery leave Nova Scotia, the Ultramar Refinery, which was a very unfortunate day for
Nova Scotians. We know
we only have two refineries supplying the market here; we have the one in New Brunswick and
we have Imperial Oil. It's
very, very important for those people who work at the Imperial Oil Refinery that we find a way
for them to continue with
their jobs, but it's also very important that the gas purchasers in Nova Scotia have the advantage
of at least two suppliers.
We will do everything that is humanly possible as a government to make sure that that refinery
remains in Nova Scotia.

MR. GAUDET: Mr. Speaker, I will table those two press releases that were issued by HRM
yesterday. These press releases
indicate that this government is failing to work with municipalities. The Cape Breton Regional
Municipality wants to take the
province to court and the mayor believes that their economy is in chaos. The Halifax Regional
Municipality believes it is
being short-changed with the establishment of the Capital Transportation Authority and the
Imperial Oil assessment. The
Town of Canso is being harassed by the Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations Minister for
not completing a study on
the town's future.

So my next question to the Premier is, could the Premier explain why he has such poor
relationships with Nova Scotia
municipalities?

THE PREMIER: Mr. Speaker, we have 55 municipalities in our province and they do
represent a level of government that
from to time finds itself perhaps objecting to some of the initiatives of the provincial government,
but by and large I think we
have a good working relationship with municipalities. There will never be a day that the two levels
of government,
particularly when we're dealing with 55 governments, will always be totally in sync, but what I can
say is we have a Minister
of Municipal Relations who is working very hard. He visits and talks with those municipalities. He
listens to their concerns
and then he comes back to government and tries to achieve within the total umbrella of
government reasonable solutions to
their concerns and we'll continue to use that approach.

MR. GAUDET: Mr. Speaker, whether it's the federal government or municipalities, this
Premier is doing a terrible job
maintaining positive relationships. The Premier has lost his ability to co-operate. So my final
question to the Premier is, when
does the Premier expect to regain that ability?

THE PREMIER: Mr. Speaker, if I answer the question, I'm admitting that we have lost the
ability, but I can assure the
member opposite that, like all governments from time to time, there are differences with various
municipalities. There are 55
of them, there used to be 65 and I believe at one point, 66. Regardless of the numbers, there will
always be areas of
differences of opinion, but what we have formulated and have committed to is a way in which we
can deal with those issues.
We have a minister who has shown the energy and the desire to go out and meet with the
municipalities - he's done that - he
will deal with their issues, either collectively when it's appropriate or individually when it's
appropriate. He'll deal with them
effectively.

MR. SPEAKER: The honourable member for Cole Harbour-Eastern Passage.

JUSTICE: CORR. SERV. EMPLOYMENT

SYSTEMS REVIEW - IMPLEMENT

MR. KEVIN DEVEAUX: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Justice. The
Correctional Services Employment
Systems Review was released yesterday and it presented some disturbing findings. One of the
particular findings was that
there are systemic barriers to employment equity for all staff within Correctional Services within
the Department of Justice.
The report cites in particular a strong gender bias in Correctional Services. It says that staff make
inappropriate comments to
females and some staff are not supportive of females within Correctional Services. There are
many time-sensitive
recommendations in this report. Yet the minister says he's going to need 60 days to look at the
report. So my question to the
minister is, why is his government choosing to stall the implementation of this report instead of
acting immediately?

HON. MICHAEL BAKER: The honourable member is absolutely correct. The report does
raise very important public policy
questions. That's why, frankly, we commissioned the report in the first place. We commissioned
the report because we were
concerned about those matters and we wanted to make an attempt to improve the situation for all
of our employees and for
prospective employees in Correctional Services. That's why, Mr. Speaker, we owe it to them to
take the time to make sure
our response is correct.

MR. DEVEAUX: Mr. Speaker, indeed, this report is dated March 31, 2004 so it's been in the
hands of the minister for one
month already and he says he needs another 60 days. I would argue quite frankly that it's a
no-brainer. A lot of these
recommendations are clear-cut and need to be implemented immediately and that is what's being
said by this report. The
report recommends that the government encourage zero tolerance with regard to

discrimination and harassment and provide training by September 2004, which is only five
months from now. Given this
finding and the evidence of intimidation in the report, will the minister explain to this House why
his department preaches
zero tolerance with regard to offenders but refuses to apply the same criteria with regard to staff
in Correctional Services?

MR. BAKER: Mr. Speaker, I thank the honourable member for the question. Again, he raises
a very important question.
That is one of the matters raised in that report and I can assure you that I take those matters very
seriously, as do senior
department officials. I can also assure you that one of the matters we have to look at is that of
collective agreements because
there are issues around collective agreements, as the honourable member would know, and those
issues around collective
agreements also need to be looked at in determining how to properly implement the
recommendations of the report.

MR. DEVEAUX: Mr. Speaker, one of the report's key recommendations was that interview
panels should include female
representatives and representative of designated groups. There are on-going competitions within
Correctional Services. We
saw them on the Web site and the deadline is May 11th for those competitions. So
I will ask the Minister of Justice, will he
commit at least to ensuring that the hiring committees for these positions that are currently open
will include female
representatives and representatives of designated groups?

MR. BAKER: I thank the honourable member for the question. It's a reasonable question, I'll
take it under advisement and
get back to the member.

MR. SPEAKER: The honourable member for Cape Breton West.

TPW: TRANSPORTATION AUTH. -
COMPOSITION

MR. RUSSELL MACKINNON: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of
Transportation and Public Works with
regard to the Capital Transportation Authority. The press release, that was referred to a little
earlier, put out by Mayor Peter
Kelly has a number of significant quotes and I'd like to put those on the record. One, "'Naturally,
we were shocked . . .
when we read comments attributed to Transportation Minister Ron Russell, who apparently made
it clear to reporters
(Tuesday) that HRM will not be in charge of the authority,'" and, secondly, he said that until I
read the minister's comments
in the newspaper today, the province has never taken issue with our concept of the Transportation
Authority. Would the
minister please confirm as to whether there has been a change of heart by the province as to what
the composition of the
Transportation Authority would be?

HON. RONALD RUSSELL: No, Mr. Speaker, absolutely not. Unfortunately, some of the
remarks that I made to the media
at the press conference yesterday - I won't say were misreported, but were taken perhaps out of
context in that there have
been no decisions made as to what the composition of the Transportation Authority will be. There
have been no decisions
made with regard to how people will be appointed to that authority; in other words, that is just a
framework in which the
province is quite willing to work and we understood, until yesterday, that HRM was willing to
work as well to form an
authority that would represent the best interests of not only HRM but the provincial government
as well.

MR. MACKINNON: Mr. Speaker, this is a complete flip-flop by the minister and the
government. I will quote comments
that were made by a member of the Progressive Conservative caucus at the Economic
Development Committee meeting on
Tuesday, February 10, 2004, with regard to the composition of the commission: "Three members
of Council, three residents
of HRM appointed by Council, three members of HRM staff . . . two members appointed by the
province." That was the
proposal that was brought forth before the committee. The member for Colchester-Musquodoboit
Valley wanted to know
who put this proposal forth and Mr. McLellan responded: "Easily, Mr. Chairman. That structure
was originally put forth by
the provincial side." So my question to the minister is, why have you changed your position?

MR. RUSSELL: Mr. Speaker, we have not changed. I don't know exactly where that
composition was conveyed to HRM
or by whom, but I do know that it has always been the opinion of Cabinet and of the department
that the composition was
something that had to be worked out between the two parties. When Mr. McLellan made that
statement, it could quite easily
have been based on some discussions that he had with staff from either the province as a whole or
from the Department of
Transportation, I don't know but, as I say, yesterday, when I was speaking to the media, I thought
I was making my point
that this was just a framework and that there were a lot of details to be worked out. HRM were
aware of the bill. They had a
copy.

MR. MACKINNON: Mr. Speaker, I believe that Mr. George McLellan has a tremendous
amount of credibility in the Halifax
Regional Municipality and I believe the confidence of this process has been shaken by the fact that
the minister, quite clearly,
was very confusing in his comments when he had his press conference - plus, coupled with the
fact that the mayor's
comments were very, very strong and straightforward. So my question to the minister is, will the
minister give an
undertaking that he will sit down with the municipality and negotiate, instead of issuing an edict
from a higher position
without any consultation?

MR. RUSSELL: Mr. Speaker, I had a conversation with the mayor a couple of days ago and,
as a result of that
conversation, I thought that he understood perfectly where the province was coming from with
regard to the authority. That
authority is very, very

important, not only for HRM but for the province as well. I don't think that the province
wants to take over busing
responsibilities within the city, or the ferries, those are things that remain with the city but they are
part of the authority when
it's formed. So, Mr. Speaker, there has to be a lot of discussions. I understand that those
discussions will continue and I
hope to have the authority in place by the end of this calendar year.

MR. SPEAKER: The honourable member for Cape Breton Nova.

HEALTH: ADDICTION SERV. - ACTION
PLAN

MR. GORDON GOSSE: Mr. Speaker, I would like to read from a letter that was e-mailed to
our caucus office from Lee
Nuss of Florida, "It is truly a shame, what is going on with the Drug OXYCONTIN. I live in Palm
Coast FL. and last year,
May 1st., 2003, I lost my 18 year old Son, Randall M. Nuss, to an accidental Overdose of
OXYCODONE. Last year in FL
alone, we lost 3,200 Lives, to Prescription Drugs."

Mr. Speaker, all week we've been asking the government to take action to stop the toll that
OxyContin is taking on Cape
Breton, and all week we've had no real answers. Staff who work in addiction services are
concerned about the lack of
consistency across the province with respect to services available and the lack of provincial vision.
My question to the
Minister of Health is, given the serious drug problem in Cape Breton and the relative lack of
service there, could he tell us
what is being done to create an overall vision for addiction services across the province?

HON. ANGUS MACISAAC: Mr. Speaker, I can tell the honourable member that we are
working very closely with the
people in that part of the province with respect to this particular problem. We are awaiting
recommendations that will come
forward from that group, and I can tell the honourable member that the Minister of Justice has
indeed made an offer to the
police chief in CBRM, with respect to the enforcement problem, and we will continue to work in
that direction.

MR. GOSSE: Mr. Speaker, the government stood by when the 21-day residential program
was closed; the government
stood by when the Strait Detox Unit closed temporarily due to a lack of resources; and the
government is standing by and
prefers to point fingers at the Cape Breton police for an OxyContin problem. The people in Cape
Breton Island can't afford
to wait while the government stands by. Will the government commit today to tabling a
substantive action plan and resources
to deal with the OxyContin plague in Cape Breton?

MR. MACISAAC: Mr. Speaker, the honourable member makes reference to changes in the
delivery of treatment in the Cape
Breton area, and I can tell the honourable member that all of the funding that was available for
that treatment is still there, it
is being used more effectively and efficiently than previously. That is based on the
recommendation of experts in the field of
addiction services. There is no blame on the part of this government directed

toward the police force of Cape Breton, there is simply an offer on the table with respect to
addressing the very serious
problem related to this drug, and that is the illegal activity and that illegal activity must be
addressed as part of the overall
solution.

MR. GOSSE: Mr. Speaker, the Premier finally admitted yesterday that OxyContin is a very
dangerous drug, despite his
earlier statements that it's just good pain medication. The CMA guidelines for prescribing
OxyContin indicate that it should
be prescribed for expected, moderate pain but, to be fair, they do warn doctors that there is the
potential for abuse of this
drug. Groups in the United States have been working to have OxyContin reclassified to ensure
that it is only prescribed for
the most severe pain. My question, through you, to the Premier today is, given the Premier's own
realization that this is a
dangerous drug, will he work with the doctors and the CMA here to have that reflected in
prescription guidelines?

THE PREMIER: Mr. Speaker, the member brings an interesting perspective to the drug, to
the attention of the members of
the House. As the member opposite is aware, some of the issues surrounding OxyContin are
federal issues that are
determined by the provisions under which the drug is approved. The specific answer to are we
prepared to work with
municipal and federal authorities to come to a reasonable approach to the use of OxyContin, and,
in particular with
municipal authorities, the abuse of the use of OxyContin, are we prepared to co-operate and put
our shoulder to the wheel,
yes.

MR. SPEAKER: The honourable member for Digby-Annapolis.

TPW: HWY. NO. 101 - DIGBY/WEYMOUTH
EXTENSION

MR. HAROLD THERIAULT: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of
Transportation and Public Works. There is
the No. 1 highway in western Nova Scotia that carries traffic from two major ferries; one is an
international, and the other is
a national ferry. They bring cars and trucks to western Nova Scotia, up to three loads per day, to
travel on this No. 1
highway.

Western Nova Scotia has the biggest fishing industry in all of the Atlantic Provinces. All these
fish are hauled over this No. 1
highway in 18-wheelers at 100 kilometres per hour. This highway is between Weymouth and
Digby and it runs by hundreds
of homes, schools and churches, as close as 15 feet to the edge of the highway. My question is,
where on the priority list is
the Weymouth to Digby extension of the Highway No. 101 controlled access highway?

HON. RONALD RUSSELL: Mr. Speaker, it is part of the Highway No. 101 program to
close the gap between Digby and
Weymouth. As federal funding becomes available it will be completed. However, as the
honourable minister is aware, that
present highway is under the National Highway System, so therefore the province will not
proceed until federal funding is
available.

MR. THERIAULT: Mr. Speaker, the highway from Bedford to Yarmouth is 300 kilometres
long. From Weymouth to Digby
the 26-kilometres section in the middle has never been touched. I would like to table two
drawings that were completed, one
in 1992, and one in 1999 by this province. There has been nothing followed up on this to give to
my constituents a safely-constructed controlled access highway from Digby to Weymouth. This
very day, over 6,000 cars and trucks including heavy
transports will use the No. 1 highway. My question to the minister again, can he give the
constituents of Digby some kind of
an indication that 18-wheelers will not be driving 100 kilometres per hour, 15 feet from their
doorsteps much longer?

MR. RUSSELL: Mr. Speaker, I can certainly give assurance to the member that we will
continue to press the federal
government for cost-sharing dollars to compete that section of Highway No. 101. I can assure the
member that it is high on
our priority list of 100-Series Highway projects to be completed.

MR. THERIAULT: Mr. Speaker the people of Digby-Annapolis just want to know if this will
ever get off the drawing
board. It has been 15 years and they would like to see it become a reality. I hear this from them
every day. They fear for their
children getting off the school buses, they fear for the children playing in their yards. The people
live in fear along this
highway, on their doorsteps. All I'm asking for on behalf of my constituents, is a decent, two-lane
controlled access highway
from Weymouth to Digby. Will the minister responsible help make this happen for the
improvement of people's lives in
Digby-Anapolis, and the travellers on this highway.

MR. RUSSELL: Mr. Speaker, as I said before, I can assure the honourable member that I
will do everything possible to
secure funding to complete that section. As the honourable member may be aware, we are doing
some work on that
particular stretch of highway between Digby and Yarmouth, but it's construction past Weymouth
with overpasses and I
forget the names of all the roads, I know Brooklyn Road is one, and I think there are two others
further down towards the
Yarmouth.

MR. SPEAKER: The honourable member for Dartmouth East.

ENVIRON. & LBR. - NSP: REGS. -BYPASSING
EXPLAIN

MS. JOAN MASSEY: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Environment and
Labour. The environmental
assessment regulations have been set up to protect the health and safety of Nova Scotians and it is
this government's job to
make sure the rules are followed. Yet the Minister of Environment and Labour has said that Nova
Scotia Power is going to
be able to bypass these rules and install a new generator without having to undergo a Class II
environmental assessment. My
question for the Minister of Environment and Labour is, why are you allowing Nova Scotia
Power to bypass these rules?

HON. KERRY MORASH: Mr. Speaker, we certainly will be doing everything we can to
make sure that all people who
apply for any kind of expansion to their industrial process go through the proper regulations and
procedures to ensure that
the province is protected.

MS. MASSEY: Mr. Speaker, the Tufts Cove plant is within the top 10 polluters of this
province. Before we add another
generator to that site, we need a thorough assessment. Luckily, the rules demand that such a large
generator undergo a Class
II environmental assessment, but the minister has been trying to argue this new 47-megawatt
generator that can power an
additional 10,000 households should skip the Class II assessment because it is really just an
expansion. My question to the
minister is, how can you expect anyone to take these rules seriously when your department
appears to arbitrarily decide how
to use them?

MR. MORASH: Mr. Speaker, a good point was made that this is an extension of an existing
facility where certainly a lot of
time and effort has been spent with regard to the environment. A lot of time and effort is still
being spent to do everything
we can to reduce pollution from that facility, along with the owner, and we will do everything that
we can in the future to
make sure that the province is protected, the environment is protected, and the people are
protected.

MS. MASSEY: Mr. Speaker, our Department of Environment and Labour and Nova Scotia
Power should be working
together to figure out how to conserve energy, not create more. Reducing energy use would help
us meet our Kyoto targets
and reduce our greenhouse gases and improve our air and our health in this province. My question
to the minister is, when is
your government going to present a serious strategy to increase energy efficiency in Nova
Scotia?

MR. MORASH: Mr. Speaker, that's something that we do on an ongoing basis and we are in
consultation with the
Department of Energy. We are doing everything we can in the long term to reduce energy
consumption within the province
and ensure that we have a green province for our grandchildren.

MR. SPEAKER: The honourable member for Halifax Atlantic.

COM. SERV.: AFFORDABLE HOUSING - DEV.
PLANS

MS. MICHELE RAYMOND: Mr. Speaker, in 2002 the federal and provincial governments
signed a $37 million agreement
to provide affordable housing for Nova Scotians. As we know, very little of that money has been
used - only 21 new units
have been constructed. In my community the lack of affordable housing is making it increasingly
difficult for families to get
by. My question to the minister responsible for Nova Scotia's

Affordable Housing Program is, how many more units will the government develop in Nova
Scotia during the next year?

HON. DAVID MORSE: Mr. Speaker, one of my favourite topics because good things are
happening in affordable housing.
It's great to have the federal government back partnering with us, after they abandoned affordable
housing in 1993, and we
are working together and we're doing good things in this 50/50 agreement. As the member
opposite would know, a request
for proposals for 200 new units just went out a couple months ago and we look forward to
answers to the request for
proposals.

MS. RAYMOND: Mr. Speaker, in the Greystone area of my community, which is subsidized
provincial housing, there is at
least one block of affordable housing units which has been boarded up for a long time - far more
than a year. I've been told
these units are not in use because they're too big. Some are three bedrooms, some are four
bedrooms, and two of them have
five bedrooms. I've also been told that these units are to be levelled. My question to the minister
responsible for affordable
housing is, why have you not made use of these units, simply because they're too spacious?

MR. MORSE: Mr. Speaker, the member opposite, I'm sure where it's from her own
constituency, would be aware that it
was, in fact, her own association that wanted to reduce the number of these units. They are not in
good condition. There
were some negotiations between the housing authority and community association and we came
to an agreement that they
would only close down nine of them as opposed to a larger number, which came forward
originally from the association but
since the member is from the area, I'm sure that she would be aware this.

MS. RAYMOND: Mr. Speaker, given the affordable housing track record of this
government, there's a lot of mistrust
amongst the residents, members of that association, about the very future of their homes.

Some constituents have been telling me they're afraid the Greystone housing project units
may be sold. The property
manager has been told that this isn't the case, but I'm unable to receive confirmation from the
department. I would like to
ask the minister, would you please dispel the fears of these people. Will you commit in this House
today that the department
has no plans to sell or transfer ownership of the Greystone housing project?

MR. MORSE: Mr. Speaker, I'd pleased to make that commitment here in the House and I
would encourage the honourable
member to speak with the president of the association so that she can be more apprised of what's
going on in her own
community. (Interruption)

MS. DIANA WHALEN: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Finance. In
responding to my question on user fees
on April 20th, the Minister of Finance blustered loudly, "What I can tell this
House is this government will never follow
Ottawa's example." Apparently that means Nova Scotians cannot expect this government to
follow Ottawa's policy of
transparency when it comes to user fees. My question to the Minister of Finance is, why didn't he
just tell . . .

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

The honourable member for Halifax Clayton Park.

MS. WHALEN: . . . couldn't he just tell Nova Scotians the truth on March
31st and admit he was raising taxes rather than
waiting and bearing the information in the Financial Measures (2004)Act?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. The honourable member is, by the wording, insinuating that
the honourable member was not
truthful in this House. I'll ask the honourable member to rephrase the question, please.

MS. WHALEN: Okay, can we change the word to, why was he not straightforward with the
taxes?

HON. PETER CHRISTIE: Mr. Speaker, I guess the honourable member's question is, why
didn't we tell them about the
fees? Well, we did. We announced the fees. We put out all the fees, we published them. It was
very clear. I didn't send that
honourable member a package of them but, if she wishes, I will get one for her.

MS. WHALEN: Mr. Speaker, clearly the government has once again been caught with its
proverbial pants down.
(Interruptions) Can I say that? I can say that.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please.

MS. WHALEN: Mr. Speaker, the minister knows that the Supreme Court of Canada has
ruled that fees are only for cost-recovery and anything above that is a tax, and what were
announced on March 31st, were couched as user fees. My question
for the minister is, will he table the documentation justifying the increases to all of the user fees
that are not currently
mentioned in the Financial Measures (2004) Act?

MR. CHRISTIE: Mr. Speaker, as I indicated, the departments look at those different fees and
charges and they look at the
areas of what it takes to perform all of those. I indicated that the departments review those to see
and ensure that they're
working towards cost-recoveries and that's the position we have taken, and that's where we still
are.

MS. WHALEN: Mr. Speaker, Nova Scotians are becoming accustomed to this government's
lack of openness and
transparency. My final question is again to the Minister of Finance. Will the minister commit to
introducing legislation in this
House that achieves the goals of the federal Bill C-212 of openness and accountability in the
setting of user fees?

MR. CHRISTIE: Mr. Speaker, we have been made aware of that bill that the federal
government is putting through. We'll
have a look at it, but as I indicated before, where Ottawa goes is not always where we want to
be.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Sackville-Cobequid): Mr. Speaker, my question today is to the
Minister of Service Nova Scotia and
Municipal Relations. Yesterday morning the Bluenose II Preservation Trust Society appeared
before the Public Accounts
Committee on the issue of funding. Perhaps one of the most troubling elements of the agreement
between the province and
the society is the chronic lack of accountability since its inception. The trust is governed by the
Societies Act, but unlike
most societies, it does not hold public annual meetings and the membership on the board is limited
to an exclusive circle. My
question to the minister is, why are stricter controls not in place on the Bluenose II Preservation
Trust as a society under the
Societies Act?

HON. BARRY BARNET: Mr. Speaker, all societies in Nova Scotia are required to act
within the laws of Nova Scotia. In
the event that this one is not, we will bring it to the attention of our staff and we will ensure that
they do that.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Sackville-Cobequid): Mr. Speaker, there's a power struggle going
on in this province and the
province is losing. The Minister of Tourism, Culture and Heritage asked for audited financial
statements and was ignored.
This minister has been turned down repeatedly when requesting that the Bluenose II appear at key
events. Letters from the
society either chastize the government for publishing photos of the ship or seek annual funding for
the use of these photos.
My question to the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Heritage is, when will he finally ensure that
this situation comes to an
end?

HON. RODNEY MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, I'd like to thank the member for the
question. Indeed, I have written letters
in the past with respect to many issues, including those issues the member mentioned. We have
put in a process and I
imagine within the next week we'll be announcing the transition team so we can move forward on
the process we initiated
back in December.

MR. DAVID WILSON (Sackville-Cobequid): Mr. Speaker, this body is not fully accountable
to the government which
owns its sole purpose for being the Bluenose II. We have yet to receive any assurances that the
new body, which Senator
Moore is helping to create, will be any more accountable to the public than the trust before. So
my question to the minister
is, what will happen to the significant financial assets of the trust when its agreements lapse?

MR. RODNEY MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, certainly I do agree with the member. I will
point out again the deal signed
by the previous Liberal Government - a seven-year deal - but, I won't go there. What I want to
point out and to assure that
member and all members that the financial accountabilities and assets which need to be in place
for the new entity will be
there. It will be very open, very accountable to this House and to the people of our province.

MR. SPEAKER: The honourable member for Halifax Clayton Park.

JUSTICE - UNLIMITED LIABILITY COMPANIES:

MB - REGISTRATION

MS. DIANA WHALEN: Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Justice concerning
unlimited liability companies
registered in Canada. As the minister knows, unlimited liability companies are popular vehicles for
U.S. companies doing
business in Canada. When structured properly they create favourable tax savings for those U.S.
corporations. Nova Scotia
was for 10 years the only province in Canada that allowed these types of corporations. They
generate business for legal and
accounting firms as well as many taxes for our province. Unfortunately, Nova Scotia is no longer
going to be the only
corporate jurisdiction in Canada to allow this type of company - Alberta recently announced that
they too will begin allowing
unlimited liability companies. So my question for the minister is, were you aware of Alberta's
intention to begin allowing
unlimited liability companies to register there?

HON. MICHAEL BAKER: Yes.

MS. WHALEN: Very good. Clearly this move by Alberta is going to cut into the provincial
revenues but to make it worse,
this government has decided to double the fee paid by these offshore companies to register here in
Nova Scotia. As of April
1, 2004, the fee doubled from $2,000 to $4,000 to incorporate and doubled from $1,000 to
$2,000 for the

annual renewal. My first supplementary to the minister is, given that you were aware of
Alberta's intention to allow
unlimited liability companies, why did you decide to double the fee that will impact the revenues
of this province?

[1:30 p.m.]

MR. BAKER: I thank the honourable member for the question. I suppose there are two
components to the answer. The first
is obvious, which is I can't do anything about what Alberta does with respect to their own
company law; I don't control the
Province of Alberta's legislative jurisdiction and therefore I can't worry about what Alberta is
going to do. What I can tell
you, Mr. Speaker, is that we believe the fee we are charging is fair and reasonable.

MS. WHALEN: Mr. Speaker, I would like to suggest that by doubling the fee at this time,
with Alberta entering the market,
if you would put it that way for this kind of business, we will actually be losing a great deal of
revenue. So my question is,
considering the negative impact this decision will have on the revenue generated by this fee and
revenue earned by our local
accounting and legal firms, is the minister willing to review this user fee to determine whether or
not it was a good idea to
double it at this time?

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. The question itself is a Financial Measures Act question
about a specific part of the Financial
Measures (2004) Act, so I will disallow it.

The honourable member for Pictou West.

TPW - TOLL RDS.: CONST. - PLANS

MR. CHARLES PARKER: Mr. Speaker, my question through you is to the Minister of
Transportation and Public Works.
At a bill briefing regarding the Capital Transportation Authority the minister was asked about toll
roads. The majority of
Nova Scotians, as you would know, made it very clear that they are not in favour of toll roads.
Yet the minister's answer
yesterday was unclear. So I would like to give the minister an opportunity to clarify his position. I
ask the minister, will this
government allow toll roads to be constructed in the Province of Nova Scotia, yes or no?

HON. RONALD RUSSELL: Mr. Speaker, for greater clarity, the province has no intention
of building toll roads in Nova
Scotia.

MR. PARKER: Mr. Speaker, the minister stated the other day that if the Capital
Transportation Authority proposed toll
roads, the province would be willing to consider it, and that's after he stated that he was not in
favour of toll roads. So I
think with that wishy-washy answer Nova Scotians deserve to know the government's firm stand
on toll roads. So my
question to the minister is, haven't Nova Scotians paid enough with gas taxes and existing
highway and bridge tolls?

MR. RUSSELL: Mr. Speaker, I'm sure the honourable member has one of these in his desk. I
would encourage him to put it
on. (Laughter) I said the provincial government has no intention of building toll roads in Nova
Scotia.

MR. PARKER: Well, like I said, his answer was wishy-washy yesterday (Interruptions) Mr.
Speaker, we know that
members of the Tory caucus have actively proposed a toll road between Bedford and Dartmouth.
The future of the Capital
Transportation Authority is in question today, but this issue isn't going to go away any time soon.
So I ask the Minister of
Transportation and Public Works again, what assurances can you offer the people of Nova Scotia
that there will be no more
toll roads in this province under your watch?

MR. RUSSELL: Mr. Speaker, on my watch we will not be building any toll roads in Nova
Scotia.

MR. SPEAKER: The honourable member for Cape Breton South.

MR. MANNING MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, my question is to the Acting Minister
responsible for what used to be the
Ministry of Economic Development that is now an office. Everybody knows that this government
has turned its back on
rural Nova Scotia. Our young people are leaving at an alarming rate. Between 1991 and 2001,
there was a 9 per cent
decrease in young people, between the ages of 15 to 24 in rural Nova Scotia. As of 2001,
707,000 people were living in
rural communities, that is 75 per cent of this province. Unemployment rates in rural Nova Scotia
are substantially higher than
the national average and that is a shame.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. The time allotted for the Oral Question Period has
expired.

GOVERNMENT BUSINESS

MR. SPEAKER: The honourable Government House Leader.

HON. RONALD RUSSELL: Mr. Speaker, would you please call the order of business,
Government Motions.

GOVERNMENT MOTIONS

MR. SPEAKER: The honourable Government House Leader.

HON. RONALD RUSSELL: Mr. Speaker, I move that you do now leave the Chair and that
the House resolve itself into a
Committee of the Whole House on Supply unto Her Majesty.

MS. RAYMOND: Like Nova Scotia, Halifax Atlantic is an area in transition, on the cusp of
great things or much lesser. The
greatest thing I think that we have to face in my riding, and perhaps in the province as a whole, is
a failure of stewardship.
Stewardship is waste and waste is inevitably the enemy, whether it is of time, money, energy,
land, buildings, materials or
people. We are, at the moment, in the midst of an intricate process of setting the priorities and
preparing to put into action
the measures which will make concrete the priorities and demonstrate what we value most as a
society and as a province.
Some of them are unquestionable.

There is very little question amongst Nova Scotians at all that the most important thing is
health; without health human
beings are, in fact, wasted. Health, of course, has a couple of components, several components,
but we typically divide it into
physical and mental health. We are aware of many of the factors which contribute to the wide
variety of physical illnesses
that beset us today, but one of the most important, underlying common threads is in fact a threat
to the mental health of the
populace. I would say that it is very important that we address this with all the strength that we
have and with as much
commitment as we do the issues of physical health.

We have major problems with addiction, in various forms. I find it interesting to note that
according to the psychiatric annals
of July 2003, 44 per cent of the cigarettes smoked in North America are consumed by people who
have suffered from a
psychiatric problem within the past 30 days; that's 44 per cent of all the cigarettes smoked. It's
also interesting to note that
the leading causes of death for the chronically mentally ill are, in order: heart disease, cancer,
chronic obstructive pulmonary
disease. Look at the leading causes of death amongst the chronically mentally ill. Look at the
possible causes. Tobacco use, a
leading cause of cancer. Tobacco use, a leading cause of heart disease. Tobacco use, the leading
cause of chronic obstructive
pulmonary disease. These are unusual coincidences.

When you look at the effects or the relationship between youth and tobacco, you will note
that out of those people currently
using tobacco, who continue into adulthood, half will die prematurely of tobacco-related illness. If
current patterns continue,
250 children alive today will die prematurely from tobacco, and that was said in 1996 by the
World Health Organization.
Perhaps, most importantly, cigarette use by adolescents is a powerful

determinant of developing profound depressive symptoms. And, also from the American
Journal of Child and Adolescent
Psychiatry, cigarette smoking in adolescents appears to be a very strong marker of future
psychopathology. We cannot
afford to ignore these coincidences. We cannot afford to indulge this kind of institutionalized
addiction.

Similar statistics apply, of course, to gambling, which, as we know, is an important part of
our provincial economy and, I
would argue, should not be. These are the direct physical effects, there's also an immeasurable toll
taken on human beings
daily by living with chronic mental disease. Perhaps this is my opportunity to say that I think we
should, perhaps as a
progressive province, as a research-centred province, as a province with enormous resources at
our disposal, be looking at
some of the effects of the patterns of lifestyle which we are following right now.

I worry - I am not joking when I say that I worry - about the lack of sleep amongst
adolescents. There is huge sleep
deprivation, and you will notice that studies in the United States, and a number of institutions in
the United States are taking
active measures to ensure that sleep, as we do nutrition with the breakfast program at school, is
supplemented at school,
when necessary. Duke University has, in fact, enacted such a program and so have a variety of
high schools. Sleep is a
tremendous determinant of mental health. Stress is a tremendous result of lack of sleep. I think we
have a variety of
elements, working conditions, in this province which are contributing to a global lack of sleep -
ridiculous as it may sound.

Another basic need for any human being is, of course, decent nutrition. Once again, studies
have shown over and over again
that as much as one might lecture about the virtues of a nutritious diet, a nutritious diet is not
cheap. It's no accident, and it
is very important that this government ensure that its help translates directly into food, of a
respectable nature, on the table.

Another dreadful form of waste of people can be an inability for people to get the education
that they need. I think I referred
yesterday to the fact that there are powerful determinants as well between education and health,
both mental and physical. It
is essential that we as a province ensure that people are able to reach their full potential, that we
also look at the stages of
life, because there are people who begin their careers in one fashion, perhaps as manual labourers
and are unable to continue,
and a number of those people then come to the belief, as they reach an age at which manual
labour is no longer possible, that
it will not be possible to continue in any way, shape or form. Unemployment is also powerfully
related to depression.

No one really wants to see this happen. Nobody wants to see people wasted, so how do we
avoid it? We do it by ensuring
that people are our first priority, ensuring that needs are met, and that as a society we can, in fact,
tell the difference between
need and want. We need air, food, water and shelter. Tearing down existing housing, leaving
housing empty is a waste.
Nova Scotia has a long history and the highest rate of home ownership in this country - 70

per cent - and yet Nova Scotia is wasting this gift for short-term questionable profits. The
practice of property assessments
rising as rapidly as does the value placed on the land is tearing away at the capital of our people
and their ability to keep
roofs over their heads. The recent crisis over long-term care is only now beginning to end the
long-standing practice in this
province, once again, of harvesting the accumulated assets of seniors and their families, depriving
future generations of the
ability to satisfy that basic need - a roof over their heads.

We have a number of other forms of institutionalized waste. One of the most distressing in my
riding is that of the
commercial buildings and former light industrial sites which have gone unused - in some cases for
decades - boarded up,
annoying to the people of the constituency and they are not quite sure why it is so annoying. I
would say it's the sight of this
waste. The National Roundtable on the Economy and the Environment, a federal agency, has
recommended that there be a
brownfield redevelopment strategy. I would argue that the Province of Nova Scotia should be
leading in this because the
Province of Nova Scotia has a long history of industrial use, a long history of now abandoned and
light industrial sites. We
should, in fact, be taking advantage of that hand being extended to us by the federal government
and partnering with them to
ensure that these brownfield sites are redeveloped and taking our own initiative to ensure that as a
province we do demand
remediation of sites which may be newly contaminated. This is not a deterrent.

[1:45 p.m.]

Nova Scotians seem to, shall we say, have low esteem perhaps, or have a low opinion of the
value of this province and there
is a belief that setting standards for conducting business in this province will, in fact, make it a
completely undesirable place
to exist. I would argue that that is not the case. I have been told for years and years that I am so
fortunate to live here and I
have friends from all over the world who only wish that they could live here. It is not because we
have the best casinos. It is
not because we have the newest buildings.

AN HON. MEMBER: The best government.

MS. RAYMOND: It is not because we can find the government, no, we are in an enviable
position and I really hope that, as
a province, we will continue to be proud of that enviable position. The example perhaps that I
would leave you with is that
of my experience near a scrap of land, which I may have told, Deadmans Island, which was
thought to be perhaps of some
value, might be of heritage value. It's a little piece of land in the Northwest Arm, and whether or
not I've told this story
before, there was an anxiety to leave that scrap of land undeveloped.

We asked the question, why is it called Deadmans Island, did the research, and although the
City of Halifax felt that it was
not worth the designation of heritage and the province by extension because of somewhat weak
municipal heritage laws,
although that was not worthy of designation as heritage, at the moment the American Foreign
Legion is

preparing to erect a monument there. The French Government is interested and the Spanish
Government is interested, as
well, because Deadmans Island is the burial site of some 450 - I won't break it down for you -
people from around the
world, because people from around the world at different times, either as prisoners, as quarantine
patients, or as refugees,
were brought to Melville Island to be housed by the Royal Navy, either as prisoners or receiving
sanctuary and of those
people, a good number died. Those people were buried in unmarked graves on Deadman's Island,
a place not worthy of
heritage designation.

Luckily, that much at least is now being corrected, but it is as a result of the pressure of
governments from outside this
province. Others believe in the value of this place and I do believe that we have no need to sell
ourselves short. People know
that this is a place in which Nova Scotians can live with a great deal of health and happiness if we
apply ourselves to that . . .

AN HON. MEMBER: . . . and dignity.

MS. RAYMOND: . . . and dignity. It's important, as well, that we not waste the time or the
energy of Nova Scotians and I
would say perhaps, in closing, my father always used to say that he never invested in anything at
all that he wouldn't have
minded being stuck with. So I hope that none of us in Nova Scotia would mind being stuck with
what we have here because
what we have is a real natural gift. We must not waste it and even if no one else wants it, we have
it. We must cherish this
place.

MR. SPEAKER: The honourable Leader of the Liberal Party.

MR. WAYNE GAUDET: Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to rise to speak, going into Supply. I
want to focus on one line from last
Thursday's Budget Speech that caught my attention. On Page 14, "And despite the fact that 94
per cent of Nova Scotians
have a family doctor . . .". Well, what exactly does that represent, 94 per cent of Nova Scotians
have a family doctor? When
I look at the pocket budget that was provided to us by the Minister of Finance, we see that the
population of Nova Scotia as
of July 1, 2003, was 966,025.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Would the honourable member allow for an
introduction?

The honourable member for Halifax Needham.

MS. MAUREEN MACDONALD: Thank you very much. I'd like to thank the honourable
member for allowing me the
opportunity to make an introduction.

Mr. Speaker, in the west gallery today we are joined by a young man who has been in the
news lately. His name is Jeremy
Hinzman. He's a young man from South Dakota in the United States, who has been refused
conscientious objector status by
the American

Government. He is here in Canada seeking refugee status. His hearing will be in the next few
weeks. I would ask Jeremy to
stand and receive the welcome of members in this House. (Applause)

MR. SPEAKER: Thank you, I certainly welcome our guest to the gallery today. I thank the
honourable member for that.

The honourable Leader of the Liberal Party has the floor.

MR. GAUDET: Mr. Speaker, again, looking at the fact that only 94 per cent of Nova
Scotians have family doctors, out of
936,000 Nova Scotians, we recognize that 879,863 have a family doctor.

Mr. Speaker, these Nova Scotians are very fortunate to have a family doctor. Sometimes we
take things for granted. These
individuals don't have to think about having no family doctors, unlike 6 per cent of Nova Scotians
do. That 6 per cent
represents 56,000 Nova Scotians who don't have family doctors. It's hard to imagine that 56,000
Nova Scotians don't have
a family doctor in this province. Among those 56,000 Nova Scotians, many people are in the
western end of the province.

Today I want to focus on the need for more doctors, especially for the people in my riding of
Clare. We used to have five
family doctors in Clare, now we only have three doctors. The people of Clare are very fortunate
to have three outstanding
and dedicated family physicians, Dr. Michelle Dow, Dr. Alban Comeau and my family doctor, Dr.
Lionel d'Entremont.

A few months ago we lost one of our family doctors, Dr. Marie Josee McGraw. She decided
to move back home to
Moncton. Approximately four to five years ago, we lost Dr. Leslie Griffen, who decided to
continue his studies. We're also
very fortunate to have two other family doctors in the neighbouring community of Weymouth, Dr.
Barbara O'Neil and Dr.
Don Westbe, who have accepted many people from Clare into their medical practices, and we're
very grateful for the service
that they provide.

However, Mr. Speaker, practically every day I hear from someone from Clare who doesn't
have a family doctor. Many have
called up the offices in Clare and in the neighboring community of Weymouth, to see if these
doctors are willing to take them
as patients. Unfortunately, our family doctors have full practices, which doesn't give them the
opportunity to accept any new
patients.

These family doctors have recognized, however, the need of these people who have no family
physicians and have set up a
daily on-call system for medical urgent needs. An urgent need being a medical urgency that needs
to be dealt with within 24
hours. Every day at home in Clare or in Weymouth, there is one physician on call to deal with
these medical

urgencies, Mr. Speaker. Being one hour away from the Digby General Hospital or from the
Yarmouth Regional Hospital,
the system gives reassurance and comfort to our residents.

Of course, the system is not perfect because non-urgent visits are very high in numbers. This,
of course, is happening
because of the large number of patients per practice. Even for the patient who has a family
physician, making appointments is
not easily accessible due to high patient numbers. Usually appointments are delayed anywhere
between four to six weeks.
These physicians may see in the range of 50 - 75 patients on any given day on these on-call days.
It certainly does not make
it an easy day for everyone - even after the office is closed for these doctors, after a full day of
work, the doctors remain on
call until 8:30 a.m. the next morning. So during that time it is not unusual for these doctors to
return to their offices or even
to make house calls.

A second option for some of our residents that don't have doctors is driving to emergency at
the Yarmouth Regional
Hospital or to the Digby General Hospital. That's another problem - there are many people in the
Yarmouth area who don't
have a family doctor. Looking at the department's Web page, looking at Physician Recruitment,
we see that there's a need
for three family doctors in the Yarmouth area.

There are many people in the Yarmouth area who don't have a family physician. There's no
on-call service available in the
Yarmouth area. So the only option available right now is to go to emergency at the hospital. So
you hear stories from people
driving up to the hospital - it's not unusual for people to wait a minimum of six hours. I've heard
stories of people waiting
10 hours. Speaking with the Director of Nursing at the Yarmouth hospital a few months ago, she
indicated that the hospital
is looking at other options to address this particular need.

I want to share with you a few stories that I've heard from residents of Clare who don't have
family doctors. I remember last
year getting a call from an elderly man from home. This individual went to the QE II for an
operation and before he left he
was asked by his doctor in Halifax to whom he should send his reports. Unfortunately this elderly
man did not have a doctor
and told the specialist that he didn't have a family doctor. Of course, the specialist not knowing
our situation at home,
wanted to know why this man did not have a family doctor. The old man broke down and started
crying. When he called me
a few days later, he broke down again. He wanted to know what he should do. I tried to comfort
him and reassure him that
he wasn't alone and that this problem would be addressed eventually.

Again, just last Friday I was speaking with a mother from Clare. She told me that her son had
gone up to Halifax for an
operation. Once he returned home, she asked her own family doctor to accept her son in his
practice during his recovery
period from major surgery. Unfortunately, this was not possible, so, no OR report, or discharge
summary could be
forwarded to a family doctor at home so therefore the specialist in Halifax had the responsibility
for the post-operative visits
and extra workload on his end.

There are many rural communities like Clare throughout Nova Scotia, in need of family
physicians. Again in Thursday's
Budget Speech we heard the government talk about a renewed effort to recruit doctors,
particularly for rural Nova Scotia.
I'm afraid that if the government does not hurry up with recruiting, we're going to lose some
doctors because of heavy work
days, long hours and, especially, burnout. The number of patients per practice is certainly beyond
acceptable numbers.

I understand according to the Canadian Medical Association, that the acceptable number of
patients for a rural family
physician is between 1,600 and 2,000. I remember asking one of our doctors from home how
many patients he had in his
practice, and I was told he had too many - 3,000, 4,000, 5,000. That certainly is not acceptable.
Many residents are
expressing their concerns for the well-being of these physicians. Quite a few of them are afraid
that they will lose their own
family doctor because of their heavy workloads. These dedicated professionals, men and women
doctors, deserve a better
working environment.

In closing Mr. Speaker, when you look at the fact that 879,863 Nova Scotians don't realize
how fortunate that they are to
have a family doctor, let's not forget that 56,000 Nova Scotians don't have family doctors. When
you look at the Web site
of the Department of Health, on the page where the Department of Health is identifying positions
available for family
physicians around Nova Scotia, many of these postings, many of these opportunities are in rural
Nova Scotia's communities.

I'm glad to hear the government talking about a renewed effort in trying to recruit doctors for
many of these communities. I
would certainly call upon the government about the need to hurry up, because in many of these
communities the doctors
who are there now have overloaded medical practices. They are trying to cover for doctors who
have retired, who have
moved away. The workload - how they manage to do it, is certainly beyond my comprehension.
So, again, this government
needs to show leadership in helping many rural communities throughout Nova Scotia in attracting
family physicians.

I know in our situation, in the Municipality of Clare, it was just not the responsibility of the
provincial government, the
responsibility of the Minister of Health. In the Municipality of Clare, there were many different
partners inside our
community who helped out recruiting doctors in the past. Again, Mr. Speaker, there are many
different partners in many of
these rural communities who want to help out.

So, Mr. Speaker, in closing, I think it's absolutely critical that this government treats all Nova
Scotians equally, regardless of
where they live. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

MR. MARK PARENT: Mr. Speaker, I'm glad to join in the debate on Supply on behalf of my
constituents and my own
behalf. There's a bumper sticker that you'll often see on the back of cars that says if you think
education is expensive, try
ignorance. I like the message behind that bumper sticker because I think it says something that we
would all agree on in this
Chamber, that education is critical to a healthy province and to a strong country.

There are, of course, critics of our educational system. On the left, you have the philosopher
Ivan Ilych who has some
criticisms that our Schools Act is institutions that really brainwash people and drive out true
knowledge. You have those on
the right and the Fundamentalist Church in the States, Billy Sunday, for example, who decried the
overemphasis on
education and the lack of emphasis upon the church and you have those nowadays who are
worried that our education is
being dominated by a technological emphasis rather than a broad emphasis upon education as a
whole.

George Grant, the great Canadian philosopher, a former professor at Dalhousie, is probably
an example of this school of
thought and I have some sympathy with this myself but, nonetheless, these provisos aside, I think
we would all agree that the
importance of education can never be understated in a modern democratic society for at least
three reasons. One is that
education helps build a person's self respect and sense of self dignity and I think that's an
important reason, in and of itself,
to pursue education. Secondly, it helps give someone an understanding of their role in society, of
the civic vision and,
hopefully, a civic participation. Mr. Speaker, for any democratic society to exist, we need
educated people who are willing
to involve themselves within the democratic process and speak and hold governments
accountable, bring forth new ideas,
and help to make a democracy work. That, after all, is what a democracy is all about.

Then there's the issue of employability. We know from statistics that there are many jobs out
there, but they're available, not
for people with only Grade 12 education, but they need some form of post-secondary education.
We know that the job
market is changing in that and that a Grade 12 education, although it may have been adequate in
the past, is quickly
becoming only a stepping stone to something else, that a post-secondary education is
necessary.

Mr. Speaker, like yourself and like others in this Chamber, I'm constantly dealing with people
who come to me for help, who
dropped out of school perhaps, and I see a very bleak horizon for them unless I can encourage
them to get back and upgrade
their education, which I try to do. I spend a lot of time working with such people and so I'm
delighted with our
government's decision that was announced last year to fund the Nova Scotia Community College
to the tune of $123
million, the largest funding and infusion of cash in Nova Scotia history.

Mr. Speaker, I'm particularly delighted, as the member for Kings North, that Kingstec
Campus, just on the border of the
Town of Kentville in Kings County, was chosen to receive the largest amount of cash, the largest
expansion of any campus
outside of the metro area. I'm delighted for that. It will receive $13 million which will result in 469
new seats and a
renovated campus. The work has already begun on that. They started work back in October and
it's going on, you can see
the bulldozers at work, with a new campus commons and with a new trades wing. It's slated to be
completed in 2006, but
already the sense of enthusiasm, the energy, the vision that has been created by our government's
decision, is palpable not
only on Kingstec Campus, but throughout Kings County as a whole and when you look at the
money throughout the Nova
Scotia Community College throughout the province as a whole.

I participated with the Premier, the Honourable David Morse and Mr. Scott Brison, when he
was still on the right side of
things, as we planted bulbs to symbolize the hope that would come.

AN HON. MEMBER: Where does he stand on gun registry? Where does Scott Brison
stand?

MR. PARENT: I think he's changing his tune very quickly about many things, Mr. Speaker,
but we will have to let Mr.
Brison speak for himself.

AN HON. MEMBER: What Party is he with?

MR. PARENT: I don't know, following the bouncing ball is not my - anyway, I'm being
heckled, Mr. Speaker, by members
of my own House.

Speaking about members of my own House, Mr. Speaker, if I can deviate from education and
Kingstec Campus as my focus.
I want to speak a little bit about the Senate, because I brought in a resolution that I hoped to get
passed through the House.
Historically the Senate, as you know, has been seen as a check on the House of Commons, as the
forum for sober second
thought, but another feature of the Senate that was very important is the feature that leads me to
make this resolution, and I
will be following up with a letter to the Prime Minister as well, asking him not to appoint a
Senator for Nova Scotia until the
First Ministers have had a look at this, and hopefully we can have some form of an election that
would make the Senator
represent the province. But that was one of the original features, that the Senate would represent
the regions and would help
to balance things out. I believe in that.

Because of the predominance of population in Ontario and in Quebec, both the West and the
East, oftentimes we feel like
the periphery, that the decisions are made in the centre and because of the system in the House of
Commons, they have
control of the House of Commons. There's no question about that. The only balance to that is, I
feel, an elected Senate. Mr.
Speaker, the honourable member for the beautiful Colchester-Musquodoboit

Valley - I try to forget where he's from at times - gave a Nay, I understand, to this resolution,
because of the sort of
simplistic attitude toward Senate reform.

There is an attitude out there that it's not working. I agree it's not working, so they just said
get rid of it. That's a simplistic
solution. Mr. Speaker, I cannot let my opponents . . .

MR. BROOKE TAYLOR: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. I appreciate the viewpoints of
my honourable colleague, the
member for Kings North, but I want to be consistent in my support of the abolition of the Senate.
The $70 million or $80
million that is spent in that glorified chatting room could be better spent on the homelessness and
child poverty in this
country. I would suggest that that's where that $70 million or $80 million should go, rather than
to this chamber of second
sober thought that sits there until they're 75, if they live that long.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. That's not a point of order. It's certainly another point of
view.

The honourable member for Kings North has the floor.

MR. PARENT: Mr. Speaker, I cannot let my opponent's ignorance, however vast, prejudice
my own knowledge, however
small. (Interruptions) I stick by my call for an elected Senate, and if the honourable member will
let me finish, the reason why
an elected Senate is good is because it provides this regional representation, this balance on the
predominance of the
Provinces of Ontario and Quebec, which will always dominate and . . .

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. The honourable member for Cape Breton West, on a point of
order?

MR. RUSSELL MACKINNON: Mr. Speaker, perhaps the honourable member would
entertain a short question.

MR. SPEAKER: Would the honourable member for Kings North allow for a question?

MR. PARENT: . . . more gracious than he had shown yesterday and will entertain a question.

MR. SPEAKER: The honourable member for Cape Breton West on a question.

MR. MACKINNON: Mr. Speaker, I think the last hyperbole was a little unfair, because I had
entertained questions from his
caucus colleagues. I wanted to go on the record as well, unlike the member, I have already
written the Prime Minister on this
issue of an elected Senate. I wanted to put it on the record for the honourable member, when I do
receive

a reply I will provide the information accordingly, because my understanding is the Prime
Minister does support reform of
the Senate and is in favour of an elected Senate.

MR. SPEAKER: The honourable member for Kings North has the floor.

MR. PARENT: Thank you very much for that very helpful interjection. I will look forward to
hearing from your letter,
because I understand, too, that the Prime Minister is calling for reform of the Senate, an open
reform of the Senate, and
that's why it's timely that we put forward these sorts of proposals. As I said, the important thing
about an elected Senate is
the ability that it gives it to represent the regions in a much fairer manner than we now have in the
House of Commons. If
one looks at the number of seats, for example, currently, you could see that if you divide it into
regions, in a Senate, the
central provinces have 48 per cent and we have 30 per cent, if the number of Senators remained
as it is right now, 105
Senators. So you can see that, and that's compared to the percentage that we have

in the House of Commons which is only about 3 per cent.

[2:15 p.m.]

AN HON. MEMBER: How many Liberal senators?

MR. PARENT: That's the problem, of course. The problem is - it's not that the Senate's
broken, the problem is the
appointment method is broken. It has become a patronage chamber for the Prime Minister. That's
why you have this
predominance of Liberal senators who represent what the Prime Minister wants rather than
representing their regions and
having the freedom to be that house of sober second thought.

MR. WILLIAM DOOKS: Mr. Speaker, on a point of order. I'd like to inform the good
member that in my opinion there are
100 senators there now and I believe 88 have been appointed by Liberal Governments.

MR. SPEAKER: Thank you. It's not a point of order, but certainly a clarification of facts for
the House.

MR. PARENT: We need an elected Senate. The point is that we should have an elected
Senate, where the senators can do
two things: represent the regions, which is what they're supposed to do; and provide a brake, a
school of second sober
thought. So I appreciate the interjection of the honourable member who supported me in this
proposal of an elected Senate,
and I think he did vote for the resolution and I thank him for that and appreciate his support of
that, because an elected
Senate will do those two things. It will help provide regional balance, and it will help provide this
forum for sober second
thought - but if and only if the senators are elected, and not if they're appointed by the Prime
Minister and it becomes a
forum for patronage, as we've seen.

In fact, the last selection for Nova Scotia was in many senses quite frustrating for Nova
Scotians. That's why it's timely that
Mr. Martin has called for proposals by the provinces, and that's why I wanted to put the
resolution forward and follow up
with the letter to Mr. Martin saying please hold off on making a Senate appointment - there is one
coming up very soon -
until this new system is in place and we can ensure that senators will represent and will speak for
Nova Scotian interests.

Although we're a small province, we're a very proud province, with a great history and much
to contribute to the Canadian
nation. We do it through our MPs, of course, but because of the small number of MPs in the large
House it's sometimes
difficult to be heard, but in an elected Senate we would have a far larger voice. I've already given
you the statistics and they
speak for themselves - they should be persuasive even for the honourable member who said Nay
to my resolution - 30 per
cent of the senators come from Atlantic Canada versus 3 per cent for Nova Scotia, versus about 9
per cent for the Atlantic
Provinces when you look at the House of Commons - 30 per cent versus about 9 per cent. That
shows you the clout that we
would have in the House if the senators represented the region rather than being put in simply on
the whim of the Prime
Minister.

So I'm sorry, Mr. Speaker, I got off Kingstec education, which I wanted to speak on, Kingtec
college, because I'm so happy
about what's being done there, so proud of what the government has done and so thrilled at the
sense of energy that this
brings to not only the Town of Kentville, but to the region of Kings. I'm sorry for following this
rabbit track, but it is an
important rabbit track to follow, an elected Senate, and I thank you for allowing me to participate
in this debate on Supply.

MR. SPEAKER: The motion is carried.

[2:18 p.m. The House resolved itself into a CWH on Supply with Deputy Speaker Mr.
Russell MacKinnon in the Chair.]

MR. HAROLD THERIAULT: Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to have an opportunity to speak to
this resolution regarding rural
economic development. I have lived in a rural area of Nova Scotia for 13 generations, and my son
and his son make 15
generations. I believe in rural Nova Scotia.

Our Party has put together a comprehensive package of initiatives that we believe will
stimulate our rural economies and
keep them growing for future generations to come. Our Party has listened to the concerns of rural
business and we
understand the frustration that they must feel when you try to take your products to market or try
to attract customers to
your business. The crumbling infrastructure in rural Nova Scotia places an unfair burden on you,
and in many cases,
discourages investment in the first place. Unfortunately, the government and the NDP seem to
have forgotten about rural
Nova Scotia. Their thoughts seem to be focused on the big city.

Mr. Speaker, I remember back in October when I put forward a resolution that recognized
the problem of rural
depopulation, and it was voted down. It was very disturbing that other members of this House
would not support my
resolution. No wonder the people I represent feel like the forgotten people of rural Nova Scotia.

Since 1996, 13 of Nova Scotia's 18 counties saw their population drop, and rural
depopulation is still one of the greatest
impediments to economic growth. It means there are fewer economic opportunities, and it means
our young people are being
forced to leave, to come to the city and cities all across this country. We are losing one of the
greatest resources to other
provinces.

Mr. Speaker, Digby County has lost 5 per cent of its population, and Annapolis County has
lost 2.5 per cent, and it's
continuing to depopulate. This cannot continue. It is a situation that needs to be addressed by all
Parties in all levels of
government. The lack of attention to rural economic development is hurting all of Nova Scotia,
not just rural areas. We
learned, yesterday, from Statistics Canada that the province has experienced the slowest economic
growth since 1996. How
can that be? I'll tell you how.

Our young people are leaving this province and our growth is stagnant, if not in decline. To
grow this province, we need to
grow our population. I thought those $155 cheques were going to grow the economy, but a lot of
parents gave them to their
children to help them get to Alberta. The economy did not grow, it just helped get rid of more of
our greatest resource.
Nova Scotia had the worst economic growth of any province in Canada last year, because this
government has forgotten
about economic development in our rural areas.

Back in 1999-2000, Nova Scotia saw the greatest growth in a generation, and it's been
downhill ever since, because the city
is full to capacity and now they are leaving the province for a greater chance to find work.
Economic development growth
has not had any impact on rural Nova Scotia; more must be done. I have talked to grandparents
who are also moving West
for fear of never seeing their grandchildren again. People in rural Nova Scotia need to know that
we care about this problem.
They need to know that we care about keeping some of our young people home. They need to
know that government is
paying attention, so they will have hope for rural Nova Scotia.

What has the government's response been? There is no response. The government gutted the
Department of Economic
Development, and the results are showing today. Government is not investing in infrastructure,
even Highway No. 101, from
Weymouth to Digby, is not a controlled-access highway, and the forgotten people there feel it
never will be. Twinning
Highway No. 101 is important, but in some places there is no controlled-access highway. This
only shows rural Nova Scotia
that doubling the roads into the city is the top priority, nothing less. How can businesses rely on
transportation infrastructure
to get their goods to market when there is a substandard infrastructure in place in the rural areas?
Government is not paying
enough attention to the needs of agriculture or the fishery. Farmers and fishermen are out there in
the rural areas living a
threatened way of life. A lot of them feel it's just a matter of time before they are finished off by
government.

The problem, Mr. Speaker, is that this government has not recognized the problem of rural
Nova Scotia and what it means
to the people who live there. Before we can work on a solution, we must all recognize the
problem facing this province,
especially rural Nova Scotia. Once that is done, government should without delay appoint a
minister of rural economic
development and put together one of the best rural economic development teams this province
can find to work and make
our province grow and then that will be the day when we see our province prosper.

MR. SPEAKER: The honourable Minister of Tourism, Culture and Heritage.

HON. RODNEY MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, it's my pleasure to rise and make a few
comments and to share my time
with my colleague, the member for Kings North, and have the opportunity to say a few words on
what is a very important
issue. Certainly coming from a rural area of our province, I feel quite strongly about this issue
and, of course, I have different
views on this topic than perhaps the previous speaker had and perhaps understandably so.

Mr. Speaker, I represent an area on Cape Breton Island which tends to come up in this House
quite a bit and which runs
from Port Hawkesbury to the northern tip of Cape Breton, about three hours in length, and is very
diverse, not only in its
geography but also in our culture and our heritage. What I was reminded of when I was listening
to the member speak

about the doom and gloom of perhaps what the members of the Third Party are seeing, I see
it in a much different light.

When I drive into my riding, Mr. Speaker, and I go across the causeway and I drive towards
Port Hawkesbury, I drive into a
town in which the front sign in the town is "Believe It". That's what it says, it says believe it, and
there is a photo of a new
Civic Centre going up in our area. To me, that speaks of the attitude that is happening right now
in the Port Hawkesbury and
the Strait area, certainly in that part of my riding, and I know in the area which affects Richmond,
Guysborough and
Antigonish, and there are many positive things happening in that area.

Why, Mr. Speaker? Because we have, I believe, a provincial government that is working with
our local community. Why?
Because the federal government is also working with the local area. Our municipalities of the
various Strait areas are
working together, including that of the Town of Port Hawkesbury, and there really is a can-do
attitude with our Chamber of
Commerce and our RDA -whether it's the Civic Centre which we have invested in, the Justice
Centre which is currently
going up, the expansion at Stora Forest Industries, or the TMP plant, Ocean Nutrition Ltd. which
is having record growth -
in fact the official opening just last week, the super-port activity, the EDS call centre which does
have some challenges, but
if you looked at our area six years ago under the previous government and compare it to today,
there is no comparison in
what is happening, certainly in my riding and my part of Cape Breton.

Mr. Speaker, it's much more than just seeing some of those investments. We have to focus
very diversely in what we're
doing. The community college is another example. We have an expansion happening there in the
Strait area - 80 new spaces
being created. It's part of the $125 million expansion which is happening right across our
province. In order to grow the
economy, in order to provide the skilled workforce that we need to, we need to make investments
right across the board in
our education, also in working with our local RDAs, and working with our small businesses. I
respect that there are issues in
that member's particular riding and I face many of the same issues, because I see many people
having to leave our local area
and moving away.

There are challenges but, Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned, there are many ways to address that. I
think back in 1993 when the
previous government came in and we were making in this province, the previous six, seven years
before that, a major
investment in highway infrastructure between the areas of Port Hastings and Port Hood. Funny
enough, there was a lot of
talk about what we refer to as the missing link - a very important part of highway infrastructure.
That important piece of
highway infrastructure was neglected - neglected for six full years under the previous government,
but that changed.

In 1999 when my colleague, the Minister of Transportation, came - he recognized the need to
make an investment there. It
wasn't done in one year, it was done over three years - and I realize my time is getting cut short
soon - but my colleague
recognized the need for an investment there. That is the type of investment we need to see in rural
Nova Scotia if we want to
keep young people home. It is more than just businesses, it's infrastructure, water and sewer
projects and many other
aspects. I realize my time is getting short, and I'm going to share the rest with my colleague, the
member for Kings North,
and I will hand it over to him. Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: The honourable member for Kings North.

MR. MARK PARENT: Mr. Speaker, I too want to thank the member for Digby-Annapolis
for bringing forth the issue of
economic development in the rural areas and the issue of rural depopulation. I remember reading
quite a few years ago now,
Alvin Toffler's book The Third Wave - he's a futureologist - and he was predicting that in the
future rather than
concentration in urban centres because of the new technology, we'd be depopulating the urban
centres and populating the
periphery.

Some of that has come true, but it hasn't materialized to the level he expected on a national
level, indeed on a global level.
The city I grew up in in Bolivia, when I left in the 1970s had 500,000, it now has 1,500,000 as the
rural area moves into the
urban areas. So, it is an issue that he raises and certainly one that concerns me as a member for a
rural riding.

But what I want to challenge the member for Digby-Annapolis and his colleagues who have
spoken on this important issue is
that there's something very important that they can do as individuals and as a caucus to help in the
economic development of
the rural riding that I represent and that is to lobby with their federal counterparts, particularly
MP Robert Thibault and the
Liberal MP for Kings Hants, Scott Brison, in order to ensure funding for Highway No. 101. They
may not be aware right
now, but one of the reasons why I worked so hard, starting in 1999 for twinning of Highway No.
101 and upgrades beyond
that to the area represented by the honourable member, was not simply because of safety - that
was predominant, of course,
we're losing many, many lives along that section because of the lack of twinning - but also I
realized with the demise of the
railway that in order to have the economic linkage into the city that we needed a twinned
highway.

There were two reasons why we pushed this issue. I pushed this issue very, very strongly
when I met with the then Leader of
the Third Party, now Premier of the province, thankfully, he asked me what the number-one issue
was in 1999 that I was
concerned about and along with agriculture was the twinning of Highway No. 101 for reasons of
safety but also for reasons
of economic development. I'm a little worried right now because the highway is going to
Avonport, but the federal
government to date has refused to come in and reach some sort of memorandum of understanding
to continue the next
section. When the Minister of Transportation, the Honourable Tony Valeri was here, I went to the
announcement

expecting when they opened the first section of Highway No. 101 he would then announce
that they had entered into
agreement with the provincial government to continue the next section from Avonport on to
Coldbrook and then beyond
that.

But there was no announcement. None at all. It was a bit disappointing. I was very glad to
see him in the area, glad to see
the focus. I made sure that various people asked him and Mr. Brison questions that would put
them on the record as saying
that they were in favour of moving the twinning to Coldbrook and then moving on with
interchange upgrades and passing
lanes. So at least they're on the record, but that's all we have so far.

So if the honourable members from the Liberal caucus want to do something to help rural
development in Kings County and
Annapolis County and the county that the member represents, then please do something besides
bring forth these resolutions
in the House. Do something that you can - lobby with your federal brothers and sisters and get
some real action on moving
Highway No. 101 forward instead of leaving it where it is. You have the opportunity now. Instead
of empty rhetoric from
Mr. Thibault and Mr. Brison, let's have some action, let's have some concrete action on moving
Highway No. 101 forward
from Avonport and that will help rural development in Kings County, that will help rural
development in Annapolis County,
that will help rural development in Digby County, and that will be a real driver for economic
development.

You know the twinned highway, when it goes forward, the highway is upgraded, you'll be
able to have the transportation
linkage into Halifax. Let's see it happen, let's use the muscle that you have with your federal
counterparts. Let's lobby with
your other members and let's get this thing going because, right now, the federal government is
doing nothing beyond
Avonport. They have not come to the table, and we'd like to see them come to the table, because
I believe in rural
development, I believe in what you're talking about, and I think that a twinned Highway No. 101
will help rural
development in my county, and in your counties. So let's get going and let's work with both these
MPs to see it done. Thank
you.

[6:15 p.m.]

MR. SPEAKER: The honourable member for Pictou West.

MR. CHARLES PARKER: Mr. Speaker, being a member from rural Nova Scotia, as well, I
certainly welcome this
opportunity to have a few minutes to speak about economic and demographic challenges we are
facing in this province. I
want to thank the member for Halifax Citadel, who introduced the resolution, as brought forward
by the member for Digby-Annapolis.

It reads, "Therefore be it resolved that the government has failed to address the economic
and demographic challenges
faced by rural Nova Scotia." Certainly I agree with some of the information that's been given by
all the members who spoke
this evening on the challenges faced here in Nova Scotia.

There are really two parts to the resolution, one is on demographics, one is on economics.
The word demographics, Mr.
Speaker, I looked up a definition of it and it " . . . refers to the characteristics that describe a
population and changes that
take place within a population." As we all know in rural Nova Scotia, that's certainly going on
with our demographics and
changing populations throughout Nova Scotia.

I want to refer to this report, it's called Painting The Landscape of Rural Nova Scotia, and it
was put out by the Coastal
Communities Network and some folks from Dalhousie University. In it there are a number of
interesting facts that refer to
rural Nova Scotia and how the demographics are changing. It mentions, for example, depending
on how you define rural,
between 60 per cent and 75 per cent of Nova Scotia's population lives in the rural area. Really, it's
only Halifax, Dartmouth
and Bedford that you might consider urban in this province and anything outside of that core,
really, is rural Nova Scotia.
That means that small towns like Kentville or Pictou or Port Hawkesbury, Truro, even though
they're 10,000 or 12,000
people, they're in rural Nova Scotia.

In the report it also mentions that since 1986, the population has increased in the core area of
Halifax and it has decreased in
the rest of the province. In rural Nova Scotia the average age is higher than in urban areas, and it
is increasing. Some
interesting facts from the report. It also mentions that "Between 1991-2001, there was a 9 %
decrease in young people (ages
of 15-24) in rural Nova Scotia, with substantial variation across the province and among regions."

There is also an income gap between urban and rural Nova Scotia, and certainly in the rural
parts of this province, the
income average is lower than in metro. It's also lower than most rural areas across Canada; in
many ways we are the poorest
of the poor. Nova Scotia, overall, is considered more rural than Canada as a whole, and it's more
rural than most other
provinces across this country. We are sort of in a unique situation in Nova Scotia in that 60 per
cent to 75 per cent of our
population is considered rural, and that's a much higher percentage than most parts of
Canada.

Also mentioned in this report is the counties in our province that are declining - 13 out of 18
counties in Nova Scotia are on
the decline, and the most prominent amongst those are counties like Richmond, Cape Breton, and
perhaps the worst decline
has been in the County of Guysborough. In the county that I come from, Pictou County, our
population also has declined
since 1986. At that time we had a population of 50,700 people and by 2002, that was down to
just over 49,180. We've lost
over 1,500 people during that time period and that may still be declining. Of course it's our young
people that are leaving
that's causing that de-

population. Some are coming here to metro and some are going to other provinces, other
territories across the country.

Obviously the demographics of rural Nova Scotia are changing and as the resolution said, this
government has failed to
address the challenges that are occurring in rural Nova Scotia.

The other part of the resolution, Mr. Speaker, is concerned with economics. There are some
interesting facts also from this
report and I will table these when I'm finished my remarks here. On the economy in rural Nova
Scotia, our unemployment
rates are substantially higher than the national average of rural areas. It also mentions that the
number of people employed in
the fishery has been decreasing even though the total value of the commercial fishery is up and
there are higher landings but
less people employed.

I know one factor that could really help keep our fishing communities strong in rural Nova
Scotia would be to make sure
that the fleet separation policy and the owner/operator policy under the DFO program is enforced,
is regulated, is allowed to
continue. Certainly we have a number of young fish harvesters who are having difficulty getting
capital and they're turning to
processors who will lend them the money and really it should be private money that's available,
either through banks or
credit unions or maybe through the Nova Scotia Fisheries Loan Board, but young fishermen are
having difficulty accessing
that money.

What is happening is that we're getting trust agreements between young fishermen and fish
processors that's tying up the
relationship between the owner/operator and the fish processors. That's bad when that happens
and I think it hurts rural
communities. It's more important to keep fishing families strong and to keep fishing boats and
gear and licences in the hands
of the families in the coastal communities and not allowed to become vertically integrated into the
large fish packers.

It also mentions, Mr. Speaker, that the farm debt has been greater than the farm receipts in
Nova Scotia since 1998, and the
gap between the two is widening. Certainly in rural Nova Scotia, the farming agricultural
community is very important. In
the part of the province that I come from, agriculture is an important component of our rural
community. With the recent
difficulties that beef farmers have been facing, it's even more important than ever that government
put an economic
investment into our agriculture communities and allow, again, farm families to remain strong and
when that happens our
rural economy is going to thrive and not only survive, but thrive.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, it mentions here that tourism contributes to the rural Nova Scotia
economy and is subject to periods of
growth and decline, depending on factors such as weather and international political conflict. I
certainly agree with that but I
think what it doesn't mention is that tourism is also very much affected by the condition of our
rural

infrastructure and especially our rural roads. I'm going to speak to that in a minute but I will
table these documents.

I want to talk about how tourism is affected by the lack of investment in our rural roads. I've
spoken previously in the House
here, Mr. Speaker, on how Stonehame Chalets in Scotsburn are affected by the very poor roads.
There have been a number
of complaints received by tourism operators, calling the roads atrocious, that we'd be better off
with gravel roads. In this
case Jeff Gunn operates Stonehame Chalets and has said that good transportation is crucial to the
industry and he wants to
make his business a year-round industry. I think by investing in our rural infrastructure we could
be increasing the economy
in rural Nova Scotia and creating more jobs, not less.

My time is drawing to a close, Mr. Speaker, but basically I think government has to continue
to invest in rural Nova Scotia,
invest in our primary industries like farming, fishing and forestry. By investing in our rural
communities and investing in our
rural families we have a much stronger Nova Scotia. So this resolution has some truth to it and I
think we have to turn it
around by investing in the types of infrastructure that I have mentioned. Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: There is approximately four minutes, which would belong to the Liberal
Party if there is a member who
would like to take advantage of it.

The honourable member for Preston.

MR. KEITH COLWELL: Rural economic development is a very important issue for me. You
look at the rural areas and a
lot of rural areas have very little opportunity for employment. Usually, there are no big companies
there, there are no big
employers, unless they're resource based and we know what the resource-based industry has been
in Nova Scotia. But in
order to develop and create economic development in rural areas, you need the infrastructure in
place.

I don't mean that you need great big factories to support some small businesses, I mean you
need things in place such as
high-speed Internet; you need a convenient transportation system, and roads are an issue in the
province, as everybody
knows; and you need other things such as cell-phone service. All the things you need to run a
business on a day-to-day basis
that, if you live in the regional municipality here or in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality,
they are just taken for granted.
But if you live in a small rural area where you don't have those services, it's really impossible to do
business.

I recall years ago a friend of mine had a small business and he moved it from the Eastern
Shore into Porters Lake. Now, he's
still in a rural area, but Porters Lake, at least, every time he picked the phone up and called a
supplier in Burnside it wasn't a
long-distance phone call. Every time he had to pick something up, it wasn't an hour's trip one
way, it was

a 15-minute trip; it made a big difference. That's the type of infrastructure you have to have in
the rural areas to make sure
that things happen efficiently.

So you need a good transportation system and good suppliers that can bring you products
that you don't have to travel long
distance to get, if you're a manufacturer. We also have to target the industries that don't need
heavy equipment moved
around, more things you can do with technology and you have to encourage that. You have to
encourage that and keep our
young people in the rural areas, because there is no better place to live than rural Nova
Scotia.

The lifestyle that you can get here and have in rural Nova Scotia is second to none. But if you
can't earn a living there, it just
simply doesn't work. You see so many young people leaving Nova Scotia, going to Ottawa,
Toronto, Vancouver, Alberta,
and we're losing our brightest and best talent. That means that the jobs of the future aren't going
to be here, the jobs are
going to be in other places, other places that we can't afford to have them. We have the young
people here, we have got to
encourage them to stay here and we have to make sure they do stay here. Most of all, if we can
get them to stay in the rural
areas and work in the rural areas to build a base of knowledge and technology, well, without that,
you have to have the
services.

I remember years ago trying to get a bank machine in Sheet Harbour when I was the MLA for
Eastern Shore. It was a major
accomplishment because that meant that tourists could come in town, go to the bank and get
some money out to spend at a
local restaurant or whatever it was. That was before you had the Interac cards and all those things
happened. We did get
that, we made it happen and it made a difference in the community. Thank goodness now we have
Interac cards, we have
that convenient system in place, that electronically you can get funds almost any place and you
can spend money any place in
the tourism industry.

The tourism industry is also a vital factor in the rural economic development in rural areas.
You can take a beautiful area . . .

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Time has expired on the late date. I would like to thank the
members for taking part in the
debate.

The House will now resolve itself into a Committee of the Whole House on Supply.

[6:30 p.m. The House resolved itself into a CWH on Supply with Acting Deputy Speaker Ms.
Joan Massey in the Chair.]

MR. SPEAKER: The Chairman of the Committee of the Whole House on Supply
reports:

THE CLERK: That the committee has met and made some progress in considering Supply
and asks leave to sit again.

MR. SPEAKER: Is it agreed?

It is agreed.

The honourable Government House Leader.

HON. RONALD RUSSELL: Mr. Speaker, would you please call the order of business,
Public Bills for Second Reading.

PUBLIC BILLS FOR SECOND READING

MR. SPEAKER: The honourable Government House Leader.

HON. RONALD RUSSELL: Mr. Speaker, would you please call Bill No. 62.

Bill No. 62 - Financial Measures (2004) Act.

MR. SPEAKER: The honourable member for Halifax Fairview.

MR. GRAHAM STEELE: Mr. Speaker, I will just ask you to let me know, I think I have a
rough idea of how much time I
have, but perhaps you could let me know so I could time my remarks accordingly. I think I will
just begin, in any event, and
you can let me know as I go on.

Mr. Speaker, the last time that I rose on this bill, the Financial Measures (2004) Bill, was on
Tuesday. I was talking about
some of the themes in the bill and some of the problematic parts of this particular bill. As it is
every year, the Financial
Measures (2004) Bill is an omnibus bill. It contains a large number of provisions having nothing to
do with each other, the
theory of the Financial Measures (2004) Bill being it's all the statutory changes made necessary by
the budget and, to a large
extent, that's what it is, but there are a number of provisions that do not belong in this Financial
Measures (2004) Bill.
(Interruptions) I'm sorry, Mr. Speaker, I missed the time.

MR. STEELE: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I left off the other day, I was talking about some
of the pension changes in the
bill and how that is one example of provisions that do not belong in this bill. They weren't
announced in the budget, they
weren't part of the budget. They don't affect the budget. Some of the pension changes don't even
apply to the province's
own pension funds and yet we find them in the Financial Measures (2004) Bill. What are they
doing here? Anything to do
with pensions is bound to be complex and technical and with an absolute minimum of background
information, and not just a
minimum of explanation but no explanation from the minister about what they're for, what the
implications are, who's
affected, who stands to win and who stands to lose, we find a number of changes to Nova Scotia's
pension laws here in the
Financial Measures (2004) Bill.

That's where I left off the other day, Mr. Speaker, and what I would like to move on to now
is to talk about the portion of
the Financial Measures (2004) Bill dealing with the Provincial Finance Act and to the members on
the other side who were
carefully following along my remarks, that's Part XV of the Financial Measures (2004) Bill.

There is a provision in there that is very good. The Public Accounts are now going to be
required to be delivered earlier than
they have been in previous years. They're now going to be required to be delivered by September
30th instead of by
December 31st and that's a good thing, bearing in mind that the fiscal year ends on
March 31st. But the government has a
continuing problem with reporting from governmental agencies. Although the province's own
accounts have to now be
delivered earlier and in a more timely way, every member of this Legislature knows that many
annual reports and financial
statements are delivered to this House, in many cases, not just a few cases, but in many cases,
after a full year or more has
elapsed.

Sometimes annual reports are tabled in this House, and have been just very recently within the
past week, covering more
than one year - covering up to three or four years. That kind of information is the next best thing
to useless in this House, to
deliver to MLAs information relating to the conduct of the agency two or three or four years ago.
So the government has a
great deal of work to do to pull up its socks on this score and it's good to see in the Financial
Measures (2004) Bill that the
government is imposing that discipline on itself by requiring that the Public Accounts, in other
words, the province's year-end financial statements, now have to be delivered by September
30th.

Then we get to the portion of the Financial Measures (2004) Bill dealing with the debt
retirement fund. The much-ballyhooed debt retirement fund, so ballyhooed that the last Minister
of Finance, last June, in the lead-up to an election -
everybody knew an election was coming - and just a few weeks before the call, the last Minister
of Finance marched into the
Red Room, the most ornate Chamber in the House and he had a row of flags behind him and he
had the screens and he had
all the visuals in place announcing that Nova Scotia was finally going to have a debt retirement
fund.

Good news, you would think and I suppose the thought's good, but that's pretty much all the
government did on this
subject. I have two thoughts on the debt retirement fund that is contained in the Financial
Measures (2004) Bill and the first
thought is this and this was revealed to us by the Auditor General in his extraordinary special
report of November 14, 2003
and that is that when that Minister of Finance marched into the Red Room last year to announce
his debt retirement fund, he
was using figures that he knew at the time were wrong. He knew that he was understating the
province's debt by $0.5 billion
and it was in a news release two weeks later on a Friday afternoon before the July long weekend,
less than a week before the
election was called, that the government owned up to the real debt figure.

That's a serious matter and I don't think we should underplay it. This province's Minister of
Finance, not the current
incumbent but the last incumbent, walked into a news conference on the eve of an election with a
debt retirement plan based
on a figure that that minister knew at the time to be wrong. That's my first thought of the debt
retirement fund that's
contained in this Financial Measures (2004) Bill.

My second thought is this: it's all just for show. It's all just for show. It doesn't actually
accomplish anything. When we ask
Finance officials why, why would you take the money and put it in a separate fund which then is
used later to pay down the
debt, why would you do that rather than just paying off the debt directly? You know what, Mr.
Speaker? They have no
answer. There is no good answer to that question because it amounts to the same thing.

Why don't they just take the money that they're putting into the debt retirement fund so it can
earn some interest and that
they're going to use to pay down the debt a few years from now - why don't they just pay it this
year directly and save the
interest payments on the debt? It is the same thing. It doesn't matter what the last Minister of
Finance says, it doesn't matter
what this Minister of Finance says, there is no difference. The only difference is show. What it
amounts to is what you might
call their restricted surplus. It's like a mandatory surplus, you have to have a surplus of this
amount every year, and it can be
used for only one purpose, which is to put it into the fund.

[7:00 p.m.]

It's all just for show, Mr. Speaker. It doesn't actually make any difference than if they just
took the money that's going in
the fund and paid it directly on the debt. So, if Nova Scotians feel that something is being done
about their debt, as in last
June's news conference and this year's budget, that they're actually getting somewhere and paying
down this enormous debt,
I'm afraid they're mistaken. That's too bad. That is one of the biggest things holding us back as a
province, as a Legislature,
in doing what we're elected to do on behalf of the people who elected us, is this mountain of debt
that we have.

Mr. Speaker, I never miss an opportunity, and I don't think this House should ever forget
where the debt came from, the
debt was created by a Progressive Conservative Government. It was created almost entirely in the
1980s by the Buchanan
Progressive Conservative Government that year after year ran large deficits. We all know, and we
say it so often in this
House that it almost becomes a cliché, that the debt we run up today has to be paid off by
our children and our
grandchildren. We just have to look at the fact that the debt that we're struggling with today was
run up 20 years ago, 25
years ago, and did any of the politicians sitting in this House at that time think about who was
going to pay for it? Well, we
now know it's us.

We are paying for it every day that we struggle to pay for health care, every day we struggle
to pay for a quality education
system, or to have quality roads that will help boost our economy or any of the other things this
government does. The
reason why we struggle so hard to find the money to do that is because of the mountain of debt
that John Buchanan and his
governments ran up. We should never forget where it came from.

Now when the Liberals were elected in 1993, they tried for a little while, they tried for a little
while to rein it in, but it didn't
work very well and they didn't try very hard. By the time 1997 rolled around, well, they had
gotten rid of their Leader, they
had a new Leader, and, boy oh boy, that debt just took right off again. Mr. Speaker, you should
see the charts. Under the
Buchanan years, it goes up sharply, still going up under Savage but levelling off a little bit, and
then under MacLellan, back
up to going sharply, and this crowd, they've put the brakes on it again, but it's still going up. They
haven't stopped it, they
haven't reversed it, they've only stopped the rate of growth at which the debt is growing. And
their answer to that is this
debt retirement fund which is just for show.

We have a debt of over $12 billion, twelve, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero, zero
dollars, and this government is
segregating $6 million and putting it off in a fund, and saying, hey look, look what we're doing
about our debt. Well, what
do we save when we put money aside on the debt? We save, on average, about 7 per cent of
whatever we put aside, because
that's, roughly speaking, the average interest rate that we pay on our debt. So if you take $6
million that we're putting aside
this year and you multiply that by 7 per cent, you get $420,000; $420,000 a year is what we're
saving. As has been pointed
out in the Health estimates, the health care system will eat that up in - if I'm not misquoting the
figures - less than two hours.
That's the small amount of money that this government is actually saving with their debt
retirement fund.

Mr. Speaker, let me move on then to a part of the bill that I was hoping to spend more time
on but in a different way, and
that's Part XVI of the bill, the bit dealing with the Public Service Act. Why was I hoping to spend
time on it in a different
way? Well, because this government introduced it in the House as a stand-alone bill, Bill No. 45.
I've been saying
throughout my remarks on the Financial Measures (2004) Bill that there are a number of
provisions in this bill that do not
belong in this bill because they have nothing to do with the

budget, and if anybody in this House wants the proof, just look at the provisions of this bill
dealing with the Public Service.
How do I know it doesn't belong here? Because it was already introduced in the House as a
stand-alone bill before the
budget. It has nothing to do with the budget. This is the provision about firing CEOs of
organizations who don't do what the
government tells them to do.

I'd like to spend a bit of time on that, Mr. Speaker, because as a member of this Legislature I
had the right to stand on
second reading and talk on that bill and explain why it is so misguided, but some bright spark
somewhere in government
decided that the way they were going to get this controversial provision through was to slam it
into the Financial Measures
(2004) Bill, where it did not belong, in order that it would get passed without it skipping right
over the controversy that the
government anticipated if they'd actually called Bill No. 45 for debate.

Since I'm being denied the opportunity to speak to second reading of Bill No. 45, I'm going to
essentially give my second
reading speech here in the provision on the Financial Measures (2004) Bill, because, Mr. Speaker,
the provisions of the
Financial Measures (2004 Bill that I'm talking about are identical to Bill No. 45. This is not
something that's approximately
the same as Bill No. 45 or borrows some ideas from Bill No. 45, it is exactly the same words, and
it has been buried here in
the Financial Measures (2004) Act where it doesn't belong.

This is a very peculiar bill; it has nothing to do with finance. What it does is it changes the
province's employment law. What
it does is it designates, it deems - to use the lawyers' word - certain actions on the part of certain
people to be firing
offences. By definition they wouldn't be firing offences otherwise, because if they were already
firing offences you wouldn't
need a law deeming them to be firing offences.

These are things, which by definition, if somebody did them today they couldn't be fired for.
What's being changed is the
province's employment law. As if that's not peculiar enough, it is directed at people that the
province doesn't employee.
These are people who have employment contracts, not with the Province of Nova Scotia, but with
other public agencies like
school boards, district health authorities and all of the dozens of other government units that are
out there. Yes, they're part
of the public sector, but the province has set these agencies up as stand-alone agencies for a
reason, Mr. Speaker. It is those
agencies who employee these people; it is those people who do the searches, those people who do
the hiring process, those
people who negotiate the terms of employment, and it's those people who sign the contracts of
employment.

The province is coming in and saying that whatever your contract says we reserve the right to
fire the person that you've
hired, because we don't like what they're doing. That's very strange to say the least. The province
is giving itself the right to
fire people for something that's not currently a firing offence - people who the province doesn't
employee.

The natural question would be, does the province have the support of the organizations that
actually employee these people?
Well, it appears from media reports that the answer is no, this came as a complete surprise to
them. They have no idea what
the government is getting at here, because they weren't consulted. So the province, which doesn't
employee these people
and without any consultation with the real employer is saying they reserve the right to fire
somebody, for what? As if this bill
is not bizarre enough, it doesn't even specify what the firing offence is.

Three years ago, when this crowd had their majority government and they could do whatever
they wanted, and they did do
whatever they wanted - they passed a bill called the Government Restructuring Act. We said at
the time and we will say
again today, the government gave itself powers that were far too broad, that were disrespectful of
this Legislature because it
gave them powers to do things that aught to go through this Legislature. One of them was that
they gave themselves the
power to issue this thing called an administrative directive. Well, what is that Mr. Speaker? Is it a
law? No, it's not a law,
because it didn't go through this House. Is it a regulation? No, it's not a regulation because there's
a process for enacting a
regulation - you know, public scrutiny, public comment, they have to be published, all that kind of
stuff. No, it's not that, it's
something else again. They created a whole new category of things, that people have to obey, but
it doesn't have to be
passed through the regular legal process.

The minister can just wake up one morning, sign an administrative directive, and everybody
that it applies to has to follow it.
Sounds a bit like something a Roman emperor would do, doesn't it? They just said, I've decided
there's going be this new
law and I'm going to sign it, and from that day forward, everybody has to follow it. There's a
reason we have a Legislature,
and that is because the laws deserve to be debated and passed upon by people elected by the
citizens of the province. That's
why we're here.

But the government gave itself the power to issue these administrative directives, and it is for
breach of one of these
administrative directives that CEOs of these government agencies can now be fired. What is it that
a CEO has to do to be
fired? We don't know. We don't know, because it's not in the bill, it's not in the Financial
Measures (2004) Bill, it's not in
any of the material the government has issued around this bill. We don't know. It can be whatever
the government chooses it
to be. Now, one of the things that the minister said, or it was in one of the media briefings from
the government was that -
well, you know, if a CEO does something financially not in compliance with Generally Accepted
Accounting Principles, that
would be a firing offence.

The problem of course, is that there are other government directives that are not themselves
in compliance with Generally
Accepted Accounting Principles. Do the members on that side know, for example, that if
municipalities and school boards
follow the rules laid down for them by this government, the accounting manuals laid down by this
government, they will not
be in compliance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles? The

Department of Education has an accounting manual which the school boards are required to
follow, and that manual is not in
keeping with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. The same goes for municipalities. Mr.
Speaker, you can't have it
both ways. You can't direct them on the one hand not to comply with GAAP, and on the other
hand, if you don't, we are
going to fire your CEO.

Here's another peculiar part. I've already talked about several layers of bizarreness in this
particular provision of the
Financial Measures (2004) Bill. Let me talk about another one. The government, whatever it's
trying to achieve here,
because we don't really know what they are trying to achieve, could accomplish exactly the same
thing, by writing this
provision into all future employment contracts. They could issue an administrative directive, and
say when you hire
somebody, when you hire a CEO, you have to write this into the contract. We command you. We,
the emperors of Hollis
Street, tell you that you must do this. That's not what the government's doing. Mr. Speaker, there
is only one conclusion.
There is only one conclusion from this, because of the way the government has handled this,
because of all the things I have
talked about, and because they are clearly trying to rush it through with a minimum of debate by
putting it in the Financial
Measures (2004) Bill.

There is only one conclusion and that is that somebody is out there that they want to fire.
There is somebody with an existing
employment contract that they want to fire. There is no other reasonable explanation. Because if
that is not what they are
doing, all they have to do is write this as a term into all future employment contracts. But the fact
that they're rushing it
through the House, the fact that there is all these layers of peculiarity about what they're trying to
accomplish, it can mean
only one thing - there is somebody out there the government wants to fire but they don't want to
say who it is. There is
somebody out there right now that they've got their eye on and they want to get rid of that
person, because, if that's the
case, this is the only way they could do it. This is the only way they could do it.

[7:15 p.m.]

Who is that person? Well, some people said when Bill No. 45 was released, this must be
about Jack Sullivan, the Strait
Regional School Board. He's already gone, they don't need any excuse to fire him, besides what
he did, I think, or what we
know of what he did is very obviously a firing offence, they don't need to give themselves the
power to fire somebody like
that who's already gone. So who's the government after? Who is the government after?

Mr. Speaker, I said in my remarks earlier that we accept and acknowledge that the Financial
Measures (2004) Bill is a matter
of confidence in the government. If the Financial Measures (2004) Bill is defeated, the
government falls. This is part of the
budget. We talk about the budget kind of loosely as being the estimates, but in Nova Scotia the
budget has several parts and
one of them is the Financial Measures Act. This is the government's plan for how it's going to use
its taxation power and, as
such, it is a matter of confidence in the government. I also said that in this environment where the
government has put
provisions in

the bill that clearly do not belong in the bill, that have nothing to do with this budget, that
have nothing to do with finance or
the government's taxation power, the government should not take for granted that we will vote
for every clause in this bill in
Committee of the Whole House lest the government fall.

There are provisions of this bill that we believe can be extracted from the bill, if necessary; I'm
not saying we've decided to
do that, but we reserve the right to do that. To defeat these clauses, of course it will take a vote
of the Liberal Party as well
as our Party to defeat any clause. I don't know what they're going to do. I will listen with interest
to speakers from the
Liberal Party on this bill; they'll be getting up shortly and we'll hear what their intentions are. As
for us, our message to the
government on this bill, we will support it on second reading so that it can move along. We're not
at the stage yet where
we're ready to decide yes or no to the whole Financial Measures (2004) Bill, yes or no to the
budget, for the reasons that I
gave in my reply to the budget. We're not ready to do that yet. So we will be supporting this bill
on second reading, but the
government should not take for granted that we will support every clause of this bill as it moves
through Committee of the
Whole House.

There are at least a couple of candidates, Mr. Speaker, for that happening. Our caucus will
have to very carefully consider its
position on this, and if there was one candidate for that happening, it would be the clauses of the
bill that deal with this firing
of CEOs. A most peculiar thing. If the government has something they want to tell us about why
this is here, well, then tell
us. Tell us publicly, tell us privately, it doesn't matter, but there is more going on here than the
government is letting on,
because there is no other explanation for such a bizarre piece of legislation.

If there is another candidate for some good, hard debate, it's the provisions of this bill dealing
with amendments to the
Education Act and in particular with what's going on in the Southwest Regional School Board. As
I mentioned the other
day, Mr. Speaker, these provisions that are being amended in the Financial Measures (2004) Bill
have nothing to do with the
budget. The provisions that are being amended were enacted in the year 2000 by an Act to
Amend the Education Act. If it
can be enacted that way, it should be amended that way. These things do not belong in the
Financial Measures (2004) Bill.
The government has not been forthcoming with information about how the pilot project in the
Southwest Region has gone.
Without that information, we, certainly in this Party and I may say on this side of the House, are
in no position to pass
judgment on whether government is doing the right thing. So, if there is a second candidate for
defeat in Committee of the
Whole House, it would be the provisions of this bill dealing with the amendments to the
Education Act.

In conclusion, let me say this, I have gone through in somewhat more detail than is normal on
second reading with the
different provisions of the bill, but of course the reason for that is that there is no coherent
principle through an omnibus bill
like the Financial Measures (2004) Bill. The principle thing being achieved by this bill has to do
with user fees and taxes. It's
a very difficult subject, something the government has relied far too much on.

Certainly the Public Accounts Committee will be interested in seeing more about the
government's plans and proposals on
that score next week when we have the Deputy Minister of the Treasury and Policy Board before
us.

There are some troubling features of this bill that we make no promises on passing. We'll
listen with interest to the debate
from the Liberal Party, but this is one bill, Mr. Speaker, where it might be useful for the
responsible minister to stand up and
address some of these issues and concerns that I have spoken about in my remarks on second
reading. We're going to have
to assume that if the government cannot offer a good explanation for these passages with which
I've expressed some
difficulty, we'll have to assume there is no good reason for it. That will speak in its own way.

With that, Mr. Speaker, let me close and say I look forward to hearing the remarks of all
other members of this House who
choose to speak on second reading of this bill. Thank you.

MR. SPEAKER: The honourable member for Halifax Clayton Park.

MS. DIANA WHALEN: Mr. Speaker, it's a pleasure for me to rise today and speak as the
Finance Critic for the Liberal
Party on the Financial Measures (2004) Bill. I've listened with great interest to the comments
made previously and I think, as
a starting point, certainly this bill does include all manner of changes, many of which are not
financial. It, in fact, includes -
just as an overview - changes to the debt retirement fund, outlining it; corporate taxes, it reverses
the tax cut and outlines the
new tax rates; it indicates a new deadline for the Public Accounts; it talks about tuition support; a
change in governance in
school boards; it cancels any increase in the MLAs' pays related to the study that was recently
done; and it touches on user
fees and taxes. That's to name just a few.

There are, in fact, 21 different Acts that are amended through this Financial Measures (2004)
Bill. I found a lot of it to be
semantics, a lot of it to be just fee changes going from one fee to another - some of it structural
changes and some of them
actually talking about new programs, such as the tuition agreements that will come into
place.

Basically, it captures everything but the kitchen sink, I think we could say, or use the word
omnibus bill. It's very broad and
there's a great deal that can be said about it. I think that it's important that we do go through it in
great detail because of the
fact there's every opportunity for things to be, not deliberately hidden, but because of the depth of
it that it could, in fact, be
overlooked. I think it's really important that all members of the Opposition go through it with a
fine-tooth comb and pay a
great deal of attention to each of the Acts that are changed.

One thing that is different this year is that to defeat this bill could trigger the fall of a
government. That this bill goes, as was
pointed out, hand in hand with the budget. So it is important for members of the government side
to recognize that once the
budget passes, this government is not entirely out of the woods. If anything is hidden in the
budget that is not disclosed by
government during estimates, we will get a second crack at this bill. I urge the governing
members to take this into
consideration when we are discussing and asking questions during estimates.

I wanted to cover the issue of user fees because there's a great number of them in this bill. As
you go through, there are
many, many of them and they have to be referenced back to the Act in which they come. There
were a number of questions
asked lately in Question Period, it's very clear that the Supreme Court of Canada has said that
user fees must be simply cost
recovery; they must relate to the cost of providing a service for government. If they go beyond
that, they are, in fact, taxes
and need to be fully disclosed and dealt with differently here in the House.

So although we heard on March 30th, I believe it was, the introduction of
many new taxes or user fees, 508 to be exact, we
have seen a number of them acknowledged here to be more than user fees but to, in fact, be taxes.
I think that's very
important because it speaks to the clarity and it speaks to the transparency of government,
whether or not people are aware
of what's being done and how things are coached. The wording that we use is very important for
whether or not the public
fully understands what's being done in very important matters that affect the cost of doing
business, the cost of living in a
community, the cost of running a car, registering a car and so on.

There are so many fees and taxes that we're faced with daily that it's important to be clear and
up front in all of those cases.
Although it may seem a massive task to go through and itemize and explain 508 new fees or
taxes, it's really important that
that system be put into place and begin now and that the departments that are responsible for
these individual taxes and fees
take responsibility and begin to just improve the integrity of the user fee and tax system so that
people have greater
confidence and greater trust in government as these changes are made.

In fact, when these changes came in, the minister was interviewed on a show and said that,
yes, most of them were 6.5 per
cent on average and were cost recovery. I asked that question recently, actually I think it was
April 20th in the House, I have
a copy of the Hansard here, but the answer I got when I asked that the calculations be provided,
the Minister of Finance
answered me that some of those fees will be addressed in the Financial Measures (2004) Bill,
which we do see here today,
although I would suggest that not very many are indicated here as taxes out of 508. He goes on to
say, ". . . which will be
tabled in this House in the next few days. Some of those fees were just done through regulations,
but we can indicate, as I
indicated at the time of the fees, these were just cost-of-living adjustments to enable us to provide
the service Nova Scotians
want at a reasonable rate and fee."

Although that is what the minister has said, I feel that there's a great number of them that are
not accounted for fully and the
information for that should be brought here and perhaps we'll learn more about that when we do
discuss user fees at the
upcoming Public Accounts Committee meeting, but I think it's very important that we dwell on
that and really look at the
integrity of the system that's in place right now. In fact, since the year 2000 it would appear that
with all the user fee
increases, we're up to about $230 million a year in additional revenues that are being collected by
the province. So this is
much larger than the $12 million that we're talking about right now. The latest round of user fees,
the 508 user fees, that
were just increased amount to about $12 million annually in revenue, but consider that in the
context of user fees that have
gone up since 2000 and that is a total of $230 million per year.

So basically what we're doing in this bill by identifying certain of those user fees that are
clearly taxes, according to the
Minister of Justice, we're simply protecting ourselves from any court challenges and I think that
that is important because we
don't want to leave the province exposed, but better to analyze it in the first place and make these
changes in a more
structured manner. I think it's very important to note - and I realize we are at the start of a new
fiscal year - these user fees
were announced in a big block, en masse, at the very end of one fiscal year. So it's done in such a
way that, once again,
because of the enormity of the number of fees we are looking at, it's very difficult to zero in and
really analyze and
understand the implications of each and every one. Some of them do have some very negative
implications to either business
or individuals. So I think it makes more difficult and perhaps that is not such a bad thing, but it
keeps the Opposition very
busy in trying to analyze and understand all the implications of those changes.

In the months since the election in August, which was my arrival here in the Legislature, the
Finance Minister has held a
couple of briefings for members of the Opposition and that was done at our request. Now we
have a new system in place, we
have a minority government, I think the public genuinely expects that in a minority government all
of the Parties involved
will have a voice and will have some influence and it was accepted by the Minister of Finance that,
yes, indeed, we would
have some advanced briefings before some announcements were made, but those have really been
very few and far between.
Certainly in September and again in December we had an advanced look at the quarterly reports
as they were coming out,
but that advanced warning was only a matter of, you know, less than an hour before the figures
and the position was made
public through a press conference.

So, I would have to say that that level of consultation is extremely superficial. The gesture is
appreciated, but it really has
not gone far enough. I think that the members of the Opposition would agree that we need to
have a greater dialogue,
because it's very difficult to expect support on measures that will cost new resources or on new
measures to restructure
government in any way when we're not fully apprised of the situation in government. If we don't
know fully the cost, if we
don't know fully the situation as the year is unfolding, it's

very difficult for us to provide support for whatever measures are being suggested here in the
House.

One of the things that the government did fail to disclose, and was pointed out again by the
Auditor General in his November
14th report, and it is very significant, was some of the lack of clarity, and I use
that word rather loosely, I guess we could say
lack of transparency that the government provided for changes that were being made to certain
accounting practices. It has
to be noted that although these practices conform to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles,
their adoption and the
timing of their adoption created favourable conditions, by and large, for the government and for
the reporting of the
provincial records.

One thing that didn't was the addition of $500 million to our debt, and the debt shot up
because of a change in accounting
rules, primarily, but that was well known, that change had been studied. In fact, the Auditor
General was calling for that
change. It should have been adopted at some point anyway, but when the debt management plan
was announced, as we
heard earlier today, in late June or mid-June, it was fully known to the government that that
change was coming and that the
debt would go up by a substantial amount, by $0.5 billion, $500 million. At the same time, those
figures were not disclosed.
It made the debt management plan look that much more rosy.

The plan itself, coming as it did on the very eve of an election, and really because it was one
plank or one piece of the puzzle
that had been promised by the government and never delivered, so with the election looming, the
government scurried,
pulled together the pieces, announced a debt management plan, but didn't come fully clean in
terms of telling us, entirely,
what the implications were going to be, knowing that this accounting change was just around the
corner, in fact just two
weeks around the corner. And, again announced on the eve of a long weekend, where it would
attract very little attention.

So those sorts of things have left a distinct atmosphere of - certainly caution and perhaps
distrust in terms of our relationship
with the government. Those things are not upfront and they're not straightforward, and they're not
really being fully
accountable to the public.

We would like to make the demand that the government begin to pay more than lip service to
our demands for fuller
inquiries and for fuller information, so that we can begin to play a larger role in the measures that
are before us and even in
terms of support for the budget, because, again, it is very difficult, where the balance does lie with
the Opposition Parties to
pass the budget, if we don't have the co-operation of government. It has certainly been in short
supply this Spring, in spite of
government's spin to the contrary.

I wanted to go a little bit into some of the stages that we're at, since I have the opportunity
today and I'm being given the
time to speak to the Financial Measures (2004) Bill. One of the very favourite charts that we're
seeing lately, by the
government - and I will

table this for you, but it's in the budget highlights, so it's something that the members of the
House have received - is a chart
that shows the differential between the provincial and the federal income, the revenue that we
receive from our own source
revenues within the province and those that are generated or received through transfer payments,
either for health and social
services or for equalization.

The point that has been made a number of times by the Premier and by other members of the
government, and in fact he had
a large chart like this behind him when he announced the reversal of the tax cut as part of his
rationale for blaming Ottawa
for the fact that he had to reverse the position on the tax cut. Part of the reason he does that is
because there's a large
differential between our own source revenue and our government revenue, but what should be
remembered is the sharp rise
in our source revenue, the fact that Nova Scotians, more of them are working, more of them are
paying taxes, and more
companies are profitable and doing well, and that means we've generated more money. In fact, for
our own coffers, we've
generated an extra $1 billion from 1999-2000 to this expected year, 2004-05, and that's very clear
on the chart, right here in
our budget highlights.

That is a very positive thing, $1 billion more available to this government to service our debt
and provide the many services
that the public requires, the many departments that we're going through, one by one, line item by
line item. We're looking
very carefully at the services that government provides to Nova Scotians, and many of those are
very important, very
essential. In fact, I would venture to say they all are. I realize the challenge for government is
setting priorities and being able
to balance them, but I don't think it's fair to take that chart that shows that the government
revenues have gone up to just
about $2 billion and that our own source revenues have risen to $4 billion, and say that there's
anything wrong with that,
because that shows a greater capacity within Nova Scotia that we should be relying upon
ourselves a lot more. The spread
actually indicates increased prosperity, and I think that needs to be mentioned. Again, if we simply
look at Ottawa and how
much money comes from the federal government, we see it has increased in the last number of
years.

Just to speak briefly to the volatility of the equalization payments which I know is a subject of
great debate among members
of the government, the equalization formula has been set for many years, and it's well-known to
the government that if our
provinces that are richer and have larger economies don't do well, there's less money in the pot to
distribute to those
provinces that receive equalization payments. Given the news throughout the summer of SARS
and forest fires and
difficulties with BSE in our cattle industry, it was well-known that there would be less
profitability, less money in the pot for
distribution among all of the provinces that receive money, and Nova Scotia is among them.

So, it was not an unexpected thing. I think the tone of the government in blaming Ottawa for
these things, it should be
balanced with the fact that it was not unexpected, it was predictable. The fact that there is
volatility in that formula is a
problem, and the formula does need to be amended so that some of those bumps can be taken out
and the sharp increases or

decreases that you might benefit or suffer from can be removed. The formula has been
well-known and set for a long time, I
think that we can't go around just referring to that alone.

In your own corporate plan which came out January 16, 2004, the same chart is given again
with a little more detail. Again,
it shows the same thing, that the revenues are up by $1 billion and, in fact, government money
from the federal government
is increasing. I'm kind of tired of that argument coming from government. There's no recognition
of the fact that we have an
increased capacity to pay our bills and to look after our people. I really have to say that there's
been a failure on the part of
the Conservative Government, five years after a mandate began, to still be complaining about
these kinds of factors when
you've enjoyed five of the best years that have come to Nova Scotia in many years. You have
enjoyed the benefit of
spending large amounts of capital projects related to the oil industry, new people coming onboard,
moving to our province
spending and contributing to our province.

I think that it's been very good times and it's kind of a sad commentary that we're at this point
in time, still complaining
about an inability to fund our activities and to look after the basic needs of some people in our
society. I would say it's a
poor record for the Conservative Government to have to live by.

The ordinary revenues that we generate ourselves are significantly up, and I think that's the
point that has to be made there.

Again, just in the general sense of how this budget goes I guess in setting the stage for this
budget, we were given, as well,
during the budget presentation, a small briefing of budget highlight, essentially. One of the very
first things that jumped out
at me in that budget highlight, which is the very top of it - once again, Mr. Speaker, everybody
has a copy of this. I could
table it, but everybody has that copy. In the very beginning on the budget summary, it shows our
ordinary revenues and it
shows our net program expenses. In the figures there it provides the percentage change. What it
shows is that our ordinary
revenues are projected to be up by 4.2 per cent this year but our net program expenses are rising
faster, they're rising at 5.4
per cent. The same thing was true last year when we compared this to the same chart in last year's
budget highlights. That is
a continuing trend where our ordinary revenues and the increase in them is not matching the
increases that are being seen in
our program expenses. That's simply not sustainable in the long run. That doesn't even take into
account capital projects and
new debt that will be adding to this. It simply indicates, in a nutshell, that we can't afford the way
we're currently growing
and spending our money. So there isn't a balance between the growth in what we're spending and
the growth in our
revenues that are available to us, and so it is a concern to me and it should be to Nova Scotians.
(Interruptions)

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. The honourable member for Halifax Clayton Park has the
floor.

MS. WHALEN: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. As I say, I think it points very strongly
to whether or not there is
sustainability in the balance in our financial house here in Nova Scotia and some real concerns
there.

Another point that I would like to raise in this, since it's part of the overview of the budget, is
the expected revenues that
we're looking at from a number of sources, which I think, again, just points to some aspects of the
budget that may be a little
bit - not just unsustainable, but unrealistic. That would be primarily the growth that is expected in
retail sales. This year it is
expected that our retail sales will grow from 2003, being only less than 1 per cent - it was 0.8 per
cent growth - and we're
expecting now that suddenly that will recover and grow to 4.5 per cent in this year, 2004-05. That
just doesn't seem realistic
to me - if we've gone from less than 1 per cent, that we're suddenly going to have some major
influx of capital or money
that is going to create that bump in spending.

When I questioned the Finance Department officials about that, I was told that it was related
to recovery in the American
market and I think, again, that's very unpredictable and very volatile because their economists in
the United States are
disagreeing right now about where their economy is going because they had what looked like a
recovery and then, six
months later, it has crashed and hasn't followed the normal process; also, the spending and the
way the government is
behaving in the United States is very precarious. They're actually looking at a deficit this year,
something in the range of $1
trillion, and to run an economy in that way is very unsustainable as well. I don't think that it has
actually had the impact that
they've hoped.

Now, I would hope that there are great sales in the U.S. and that they buy lots of our
products, which pumps more money
into Nova Scotia and then as a result we will see some big increase in retail sales, hopefully in the
range of 4 per cent or 5
per cent. But I just think that we have to be very cautious in planning or estimating what kind of
revenue we will be able to
generate because we have to live within that through the year, and if it doesn't materialize we're
going to be faced with the
same problems we had this year, which is getting partway into the year and starting to have to
make cuts in our programs or
defer spending or create greater hardship for Nova Scotians. That's not where we want to be as
the year progresses, so it's
better to start out, I think, with an estimate that's realistic and cautious rather than
overestimating.

Another one, just by way of interest, that we've overestimated I believe would be the increase
in our revenue from the Nova
Scotia Liquor Corporation. We're looking at what would amount to just over a 9 per cent
increase in profit or revenue from
the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation, and that's not substantiated in any way. I don't at all expect
that Nova Scotians will be
consuming 9 per cent more alcohol, and I would hope that we're not looking at some huge
increases in taxes or the cost of
that product - we haven't heard anything to that effect. But something is leading the economists or
the forecasters in the
estimate to put an increase of 9 per cent on the profits for the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation.

Again, we've heard today that they've hired new people and they're expanding their
communications department and doing
other things, so I don't think there is belt-tightening going on in that end either. So something is
amiss I think in terms of
putting that much emphasis on the sales from the Nova Scotia Liquor Corporation.

I would say, just as a way of caution, I had a look at the Gaming Corporation and their
revenues are expected to be flat, the
same as last year, which I thought was good because I wouldn't want to think that we were
expecting a great deal more
gambling in that sense. So those are some of my concerns in terms of the general - just the
background in setting the stage
for this current Financial Measures (2004) Bill and the budget that's before us as well.

In the debt management plan there is a large section in this Financial Measures (2004) Bill
that deals with debt and how
you're going to enshrine the debt management plan that was announced in June into the legislation
and make it law. It's
probably a good thing to put it in legislation simply to formalize it. I think that is better than just a
road show, essentially,
you know, what you might describe the original press release as, because there was a press
conference held and I think it
was mentioned - unfortunately I wasn't there last June - that it was to great fanfare that the debt
management plan was
announced. Again, I would say that members of the Opposition had raised the issue that this
government had no plan for
retiring debt and that that was one of the major gaps in the entire financial management of the
province.

So, it was done on the fly. I think it was done definitely in haste in order to prepare for an
election and feel that all your
ducks were in order, Mr. Speaker. I think it's a good thing that we have a plan. This Opposition
Party, our Liberal Party has
criticized the government for not having a better plan for spending in health care, for example.
We've said it's one thing to
put money in, but you need to plan.

[7:45 p.m.]

It's good that a debt management plan has been formulated, but I have some doubts about
how well it can actually be
implemented. Some of the figures that we've talked about for this year alone would be to put $10
million away through two
different funds, a debt retirement fund and debt contingency, I guess a retirement contingency
fund. But essentially putting
$10 million aside this year in the hopes of this fund growing to a point where you could actually
put, I believe it's $70
million down on the debt. The debt is continuing to grow, from now until 2007 I believe it is.

When I looked at the original press release for the debt reduction plan, which came out June
11th, it pretty much follows
exactly what we see in our estimates given. It's Schedule 20 of the financial year. It's the Nova
Scotia budget for the
financial year, it's pretty light, a small one. But it's the last chart in that book - it's Schedule 20 - it
does outline there how
the

hoped-for surpluses from year to year, each annual surplus, if they materialize will over time
lead to having $106 million in
the debt retirement plan, which can then go against the debt, and hopefully also cover all the
capital purchases. I think this is
highly optimistic. In order to actually retire any debt you also have to get control of the increase
each year and the net book
value of our capital assets. That's going to be very difficult to do, Mr. Speaker. It's not that I'm
not hopeful that it could be
done, I just don't feel that it's very sustainable when you actually look at what we are hoping to
achieve in those few years.

I think it is good to mention that the debt rose so dramatically under the Progressive
Conservative Government of John
Buchanan, and left this province really crippled. In the early 1990s there is no question that this
province was on the verge of
bankruptcy. It was crippled financially. We have recovered significantly in that time, but this is the
burden that we're left to
carry, and that's the debt that we're still asked, and probably for generations will be asked to
manage.

Volume two of the financial statements shows that the debt servicing cost in 2003, which is
the most recent year available,
was in fact $1.79 billion. In that year alone, it exceeded the $1 billion mark. It's a shocking
amount of money to come out of
our Treasury, essentially and not be spent on important services for Nova Scotians. I think while
we are talking about debt
and the debt management plan, you really can't speak about that without looking at that debt
servicing cost that amounts to
over $1 billion a year. The money we spend for interest payments and on the debt is money that
isn't available for education,
for university students, for health, for our seniors and for the many others who depend on
government services.

In our constituencies, I know all of us as MLAs deal with many calls. I'm as a new MLA
learning more about that. Many
calls are coming in from people who have difficulty accessing a certain health care service, home
care, maybe it's community
services. These people are trying to live on very little, and it's almost impossible for them to
maintain their lives. That's
because we don't have the money in this province to anywhere near match what's available in
other provinces. In some of
the health care areas we are unable to afford services.

We again and again come up as the lowest in terms of the services we provide to our people.
In fact, the alternative budget
put out by the alternative provincial budget which was published recently by the Canadian Centre
for Policy Alternatives said
that we have the lowest per capita spending on programs of any province in the country. That just
mirrors what we hear
again and again, that we have the worst indicators for so many things. Our debt per capita being
so high, our provincial debt
being among the highest. Our health indicators being among the lowest. Our spending on our
people per capita, the lowest in
Canada.

We have a tremendous need to improve our performance in the situation we're in and the debt
levels that we carry make it
very, very difficult for us to help those people who call and say that they can't live, either because
of their disability or
infirmity, on the money that's available to them. That's a sorry thing to say about Nova Scotia
which is a province that we all
love and I think we're all very proud to be from and live in. All of us, I'm sure, regardless of any
Party politics, are very
disturbed to see that that's the situation in Nova Scotia today.

So there's an awful lot of need to do something about debt. I don't want to minimize the need
for us to act on it, but this
debt will only stop growing in three years time if everything goes according to plan and the plan
has just so many if's. We
can't even deal with this year's budget without wondering whether, you know, with a million
different factors that could
alter by just a fraction, we won't hit any kind of a surplus either. We're talking about a razor-thin
surplus that's estimated at
$2.1 million on a budget of over $6 billion. So there are so many uncertainties and when you try
to look down the road to
even imagine that we could have enough money in that debt retirement fund, that we could find an
extra $70 million a year
to put into that debt retirement fund, is pretty hard to imagine. So I think that that leaves us with
a lot of concerns.

Mr. Speaker, the whole debt management exercise really does look like a public relations
exercise and I wish I had been
there last June because I think it would be even more clear to me had I been there at the press
conference when it was all
unveiled. It's a telling thing when there are so many pressing needs and so little ability to do it.
The reality is that in order to
attain this plan, the government will have to attain surpluses that are big enough to offset the
borrowing for tangible capital
assets, which means our roads and our school projects, et cetera, and that's a significant amount
of money. In fact, in the
year that we're looking at beginning retiring debt, 2007-08, we're up to $86.8 million. So we
would have to have that kind
of a surplus in order to even begin to retire any debt. As I say, we're hopeful, we'll certainly
support the idea of a plan. I
don't want to belittle the idea that we are planning, I just feel that it's an enormous task before
us.

Mr. Speaker, I wanted to speak a little bit about the tax cut that was before us as well. I think
I will go on to economic
growth, we'll talk about that. I think the government side is tired of hearing about the tax cut so
I'm going to talk a little bit
about the revenue side of the ledger and economic growth because another part of this bill talks
about certain measures,
certain taxes and fees and so on, but what is difficult is that really the government has failed to
address certain measures that
could grow our economy. The only way that the government is going to be able to attain the
surplus that we talked about,
the need to continue that tremendous growth that you have enjoyed, the $1 billion extra in
owned-source revenue, is to grow
the economy and to see that some of the sectors that are slowing down, we need to either replace
them with another sector
or find some new measure, a new method, to raise money. So it's very important to continue to
look at the revenue side and
the economy of Nova Scotia.

As I said, I believe that this budget really has failed to consider any measures that will grow
our economy. The only way that
we'll get the surplus we need is to do just that. There is nothing in this bill that addresses it and
nothing that I see in the
budget. There were no measures to improve rural economic development or to stimulate business
or the economy. In fact,
there are portions of this bill, the Financial Measures (2004) Bill, which will, in fact, slow the
economy. In particular, the
large corporations capital tax will have a negative effect on investment. Companies will not be
willing to invest here if, in
fact, it's cheaper for them to go elsewhere and especially even in Atlantic Canada.

A lot of our largest employers are companies that have operations in the States, or elsewhere
in the world, or across Canada,
and I think if Michelin or Bowater, or Stora Enso, all of those have other operations that they
could choose to invest in.
What we've done by increasing the capital tax for corporations is we've punished those firms
because if they want to invest
here to upgrade, to create better facilities, more efficient manufacturing facilities, they actually
have to pay a larger tax here
than they would in New Brunswick or in other jurisdictions. So we've created not a level playing
field. We've had this tax
which should have been removed anyway two years ago, according to the original agreement;
we've now not only extended
it, we've increased it, and that means that it's not a level playing field, it's a penalty, on companies
or employers that want to
improve their facilities here, expand and hire more Nova Scotians.

I had a press release from the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters that I'd like to refer
to if I could. The Canadian
Manufacturers & Exporters, in Nova Scotia alone, their employers employ over 50,000
people. That's in their press release -
it's quite a staggering number to think of. I had spoken of them as an organization that employed
thousands of people, but
50,000 employees in Nova Scotia employed by the 1,400 members of the Canadian Manufacturers
& Exporters Association.

In their press release which was sent out April 22nd in relation to the budget,
they do say very clearly and I'll just quote from
Kent MacIntyre who's the chair of the CME in Nova Scotia: I'm extremely disappointed with the
increase in the large
corporations tax which should have been phased out two years ago. CME members who are part
of the 1,400 corporations
being taxed will have to bear a major part of the extra $12.6 million being collected. So you can
see that's going to hit a very
small number of employers. Yes, they're large corporations, but if they lose confidence or lose
heart in expanding or
employing more people in Nova Scotia, that has a devastating effect on our economy.

Now, at the same time, the small business sector is getting a small increase in the threshold
they're receiving, but discussions
with the Canadian Federation of Small Business indicated that this was a change that was coming
anyway, it's just been
advanced slightly and really, very few companies will benefit on the small business side. It's a
good gesture but it's not going
to cost Nova Scotia very much money in terms of our budget so it's more of a gesture. Again, it's
a little bit of lip service to
small business.

But I think it's really important that we consider the impact in many of our communities. A lot
of these very large employers
are not here in Halifax - they're actually around the province.

MR. SPEAKER: Order, please. Due to the hour would the honourable member like to move
adjournment of the debate,
please?

MS. WHALEN: Yes, I'd be happy to move adjournment of the debate.

MR. SPEAKER: The motion is to adjourn the debate.

Is it agreed?

It is agreed.

The honourable Government House Leader on tomorrow's hours and order of business.

HON. RONALD RUSSELL: Mr. Speaker, I move the House do now rise to meet again on
the morrow at the hour of 9:00
a.m. The business of the day will be the Committee of the Whole House on Supply. When we've
completed four hours of
deliberations in committee, we will adjourn for the day.

MR. SPEAKER: The motion is that the House adjourn until 9:00 a.m.

Is it agreed?

It is agreed.

Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas volunteers are of vital importance to all of our communities; and

Whereas the 2004 Provincial Volunteer Awards were presented to individuals from across
Nova Scotia at the Provincial
Volunteer Award Ceremony and Dinner on April 12th at the Westin Hotel to pay
tribute to the thousands of Nova Scotians
whose generosity and compassion help to create a better future for us all; and

Whereas William Muir has been selected by the Town of Westville as its Volunteer of the
Year for his long-standing and
unselfish commitment to his community as a volunteer in many capacities;

Therefore be it resolved that the members of this House extend congratulations to William
Muir for being named a
Provincial Representative Volunteer for 2004 and offer thanks to Mr. Muir and volunteers from
across the province for their
continued hard work and dedication.

RESOLUTION NO. 1213

By: Mr. Ronald Chisholm (Guysborough-Sheet Harbour)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas volunteers are of vital importance to all of our communities; and

Whereas the 2004 Provincial Volunteer Awards were presented to individuals from across
Nova Scotia at the Provincial
Volunteer Award Ceremony and Dinner on April 12th at the Westin Hotel to pay
tribute to the thousands of Nova Scotians
whose generosity and compassion help to create a better future for us all; and

Whereas Ruby Kaiser has been selected by the District of St. Mary's as its Volunteer of the
Year for her long-standing and
unselfish commitment to her community as a volunteer in many capacities;

Therefore be it resolved that the members of this House extend congratulations to Ruby
Kaiser for being named a Provincial
Representative Volunteer for 2004 and offer thanks to Ms. Kaiser and volunteers from across the
province for their
continued hard work and dedication.

RESOLUTION NO. 1214

By: Mr. Ronald Chisholm (Guysborough-Sheet Harbour)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas the volunteers are of vital importance to all of our communities; and

Whereas the 2004 Provincial Volunteer Awards were presented to individuals from across
Nova Scotia at the Provincial
Volunteer Award Ceremony and Dinner on April 12th at the Westin Hotel to pay
tribute to the thousands of Nova Scotians
whose generosity and compassion help to create a better future for us all; and

Whereas Evangeline Breen has been selected by the Town of Mulgrave as its Volunteer of the
Year for her long-standing
and unselfish commitment to her community as a volunteer in many capacities;

Therefore be it resolved that the members of this House extend congratulations to Evangeline
Breen for being named a
Provincial Representative Volunteer for 2004 and offer thanks to Ms. Breen and volunteers from
across the province for
their continued hard work and dedication.

RESOLUTION NO. 1215

By: Mr. Ronald Chisholm (Guysborough-Sheet Harbour)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas volunteers are of vital importance to all of our communities; and

Whereas the 2004 Provincial Volunteer Awards were presented to individuals from across
Nova Scotia at the Provincial
Volunteer Award Ceremony and Dinner on April 12th at the Westin Hotel to pay
tribute to the thousands of Nova Scotians
whose generosity and compassion help to create a better future for us all; and

Whereas Roger Williams has been selected by the District of Guysborough as its Volunteer of
the Year for his long-standing
and unselfish commitment to his community as a volunteer in many capacities;

Therefore be it resolved that the members of this House extend congratulations to Roger
Williams for being named a
Provincial Representative Volunteer for 2004 and offer thanks to Mr. Williams and volunteers
from across the province for
their continued hard work and dedication.

RESOLUTION NO. 1216

By: Mr. Ronald Chisholm (Guysborough-Sheet Harbour)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas volunteers are of vital importance to all of our communities; and

Whereas the 2004 Provincial Volunteer Awards were presented to individuals from across
Nova Scotia at the Provincial
Volunteer Award Ceremony and Dinner on April 12th at the Westin Hotel to pay
tribute to the thousands of Nova Scotians
whose generosity and compassion help to create a better future for us all; and

Whereas Lawrence Munroe has been selected by the Town of Canso as its Volunteer of the
Year for his long-standing and
unselfish commitment to his community as a volunteer in many capacities;

Therefore be it resolved that the members of this House extend congratulations to Lawrence
Munroe for being named a
Provincial Representative Volunteer for 2004 and offer thanks to Mr. Munroe and volunteers
from across the province for
their continued hard work and dedication.

RESOLUTION NO. 1217

By: Hon. Christopher d'Entremont (Agriculture and Fisheries)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas volunteers are of vital importance to all of our communities; and

Whereas the 2004 Provincial Volunteer Awards were presented to individuals from across
Nova Scotia at the Provincial
Volunteer Award Ceremony and Dinner on April 12th at the Westin Hotel to pay
tribute to the thousands of Nova Scotians
whose generosity and compassion help to create a better future for us all; and

Whereas Peter Hansen has been selected by the Municipality of the District of Argyle as its
Volunteer of the Year for his
long-standing and unselfish commitment to his community as a volunteer in many capacities;

Therefore be it resolved that the members of this House extend congratulations to Peter
Hansen for being named a
Provincial Representative Volunteer for 2004 and offer thanks to Mr. Hansen and volunteers from
across the province for
their continued hard work and dedication.

RESOLUTION NO. 1218

By: Hon. Richard Hurlburt (Natural Resources)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas volunteers are of vital importance to all of our communities; and

Whereas the 2004 Provincial Volunteer Awards were presented to individuals from across
Nova Scotia at the Provincial
Volunteer Award Ceremony and Dinner on April 12th at the Westin Hotel to pay
tribute to the thousands of Nova Scotians
whose generosity and compassion help to create a better future for us all; and

Whereas Lois LeCaine has been selected by the Town of Yarmouth as its Volunteer of the
Year for her long-standing and
unselfish commitment to her community as a volunteer in many capacities;

Therefore be it resolved that the members of this House extend congratulations to Lois
LeCaine for being named a
Provincial Representative Volunteer for 2004 and offer thanks to Ms. LeCaine and volunteers
from across the province for
their continued hard work and dedication.

RESOLUTION NO. 1219

By: Mr. Mark Parent (Kings North)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas volunteers are of vital importance to all of our communities; and

Whereas the 2004 Provincial Volunteer Awards were presented to individuals from across
Nova Scotia at the Provincial
Volunteer Award Ceremony and Dinner on April 12th at the Westin Hotel to pay
tribute to the thousands of Nova Scotians
whose generosity and compassion help to create a better future for us all; and

Whereas Linda Brehaut has been selected by the Town of Kentville as its Volunteer of the
Year for her long-standing and
unselfish commitment to her community as a volunteer in many capacities;

Therefore be it resolved that the members of this House extend congratulations to Linda
Brehaut for being named a
Provincial Representative Volunteer for 2004 and offer thanks to Ms. Brehaut and volunteers
from across the province for
their continued hard work and dedication.

RESOLUTION NO. 1220

By: Mr. Mark Parent (Kings North)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas volunteers are of vital importance to all of our communities; and

Whereas the 2004 Provincial Volunteer Awards were presented to individuals from across
Nova Scotia at the Provincial
Volunteer Award Ceremony and Dinner on April 12th at the Westin Hotel to pay
tribute to the thousands of Nova Scotians
whose generosity and compassion help to create a better future for us all; and

Whereas George Foote has been selected by the County of Kings as its Volunteer of the Year
for his long-standing and
unselfish commitment to his community as a volunteer in many capacities;

Therefore be it resolved that the members of this House extend congratulations to George
Foote for being named a
Provincial Representative Volunteer for 2004 and offer thanks to Mr. Foote and volunteers from
across the province for
their continued hard work and dedication.

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas volunteers are of vital importance to all of our communities; and

Whereas the 2004 Provincial Volunteer Awards were presented to individuals from across
Nova Scotia at the Provincial
Volunteer Award Ceremony and Dinner on April 12th at the Westin Hotel to pay
tribute to the thousands of Nova Scotians
whose generosity and compassion help to create a better future for us all; and

Whereas Blair Brown has been selected by the District of Barrington as its Volunteer of the
Year for his long-standing and
unselfish commitment to his community as a volunteer in many capacities;

Therefore be it resolved that the members of this House extend congratulations to Blair
Brown for being named a Provincial
Representative Volunteer for 2004 and offer thanks to Mr. Brown and volunteers from across the
province for their
continued hard work and dedication.

RESOLUTION NO. 1222

By: Mr. Cecil O'Donnell (Shelburne)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas volunteers are of vital importance to all of our communities; and

Whereas the 2004 Provincial Volunteer Awards were presented to individuals from across
Nova Scotia at the Provincial
Volunteer Award Ceremony and Dinner on April 12th at the Westin Hotel to pay
tribute to the thousands of Nova Scotians
whose generosity and compassion help to create a better future for us all; and

Whereas Norma McGray has been selected by the District of Shelburne as its Volunteer of
the Year for her long-standing
and unselfish commitment to her community as a volunteer in many capacities;

Therefore be it resolved that the members of this House extend congratulations to Norma
McGray for being named a
Provincial Representative Volunteer for 2004 and offer thanks to Ms. McGray and volunteers
from across the province for
their continued hard work and dedication.

RESOLUTION NO. 1223

By: Mr. Cecile O'Donnell (Shelburne)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas volunteers are of vital importance to all of our communities; and

Whereas the 2004 Provincial Volunteer Awards were presented to individuals from across
Nova Scotia at the Provincial
Volunteer Award Ceremony and Dinner on April 12th at the Westin Hotel to pay
tribute to the thousands of Nova Scotians
whose generosity and compassion help to create a better future for us all; and

Whereas Elaine Moore has been selected by the Town of Lockeport as its Volunteer of the
Year for her long-standing and
unselfish commitment to her community as a volunteer in many capacities;

Therefore be it resolved that the members of this House extend congratulations to Elaine
Moore for being named a
Provincial Representative Volunteer for 2004 and offer thanks to Ms. Moore and volunteers from
across the province for
their continued hard work and dedication.

RESOLUTION NO. 1224

By: Mr. Cecil O'Donnell (Shelburne)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas volunteers are of vital importance to all of our communities; and

Whereas the 2004 Provincial Volunteer Awards were presented to individuals from across
Nova Scotia at the Provincial
Volunteer Award Ceremony and Dinner on April 12th at the Westin Hotel to pay
tribute to the thousands of Nova Scotians
whose generosity and compassion help to create a better future for us all; and

Whereas Annie Bower has been selected by the Town of Shelburne as its Volunteer of the
Year for her long-standing and
unselfish commitment to her community as a volunteer in many capacities;

Therefore be it resolved that the members of this House extend congratulations to Annie
Bower for being named a
Provincial Representative Volunteer for 2004 and offer thanks to Ms. Bower and volunteers from
across the province for
their continued hard work and dedication.

RESOLUTION NO. 1225

By: Mr. Cecil O'Donnell (Shelburne)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas volunteers are of vital importance to all of our communities; and

Whereas the 2004 Provincial Volunteer Awards were presented to individuals from across
Nova Scotia at the Provincial
Volunteer Award Ceremony and Dinner on April 12th at the Westin Hotel to pay
tribute to the thousands of Nova Scotians
whose generosity and compassion help to create a better future for us all; and

Whereas Verna Nickerson has been selected by the Town of Clark's Harbour as its Volunteer
of the Year for her long-standing and unselfish commitment to her community as a volunteer in
many capacities;

Therefore be it resolved that the members of this House extend congratulations to Verna
Nickerson for being named a
Provincial Representative Volunteer for 2004 and offer thanks to Ms. Nickerson and volunteers
from across the province for
their continued hard work and dedication.

RESOLUTION NO. 1226

By: Hon. Kerry Morash (Environment and Labour)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas volunteers are of vital importance to all of our communities; and

Whereas the 2004 Provincial Volunteer Awards were presented to individuals from across
Nova Scotia at the Provincial
Volunteer Award Ceremony and Dinner on April 12th at the Westin Hotel to pay
tribute to the thousands of Nova Scotians
whose generosity and compassion help to create a better future for us all; and

Whereas Eugene Penney has been selected by the Region of Queens as its Volunteer of the
Year for his long-standing and
unselfish commitment to his community as a volunteer in many capacities;

Therefore be it resolved that the members of this House extend congratulations to Eugene
Penney for being named a
Provincial Representative Volunteer for 2004 and offer thanks to Mr. Penney and volunteers from
across the province for
their continued hard work and dedication.

RESOLUTION NO. 1227

By: Hon. Kerry Morash (Environment and Labour)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas volunteers are of vital importance to all of our communities; and

Whereas the 2004 Provincial Volunteer Awards were presented to individuals from across
Nova Scotia at the Provincial
Volunteer Award Ceremony and Dinner on April 12th at the Westin Hotel to pay
tribute to the thousands of Nova Scotians
whose generosity and compassion help to create a better future for us all; and

Whereas Barbara Foley has been selected by the Region of Queens as its Volunteer of the
Year for her long-standing and
unselfish commitment to her community as a volunteer in many capacities;

Therefore be it resolved that the members of this House extend congratulations to Barbara
Foley for being named a
Provincial Representative Volunteer for 2004 and offer thanks to Ms. Foley and volunteers from
across the province for
their continued hard work and dedication.

RESOLUTION NO. 1228

By: Hon. Richard Hurlburt (Natural Resources)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas volunteers are of vital importance to all of our communities; and

Whereas the 2004 Provincial Volunteer Awards were presented to individuals from across
Nova Scotia at the Provincial
Volunteer Award Ceremony and Dinner on April 12th at the Westin Hotel to pay
tribute to the thousands of Nova Scotians
whose generosity and compassion help to create a better future for us all; and

Whereas Lois Richard has been selected by the Municipality of the District of Yarmouth as its
Volunteer of the Year for her
long-standing and unselfish commitment to her community as a volunteer in many capacities;

Therefore be it resolved that the members of this House extend congratulations to Lois
Richard for being named a Provincial
Representative Volunteer for 2004 and offer thanks to Ms. Richard and volunteers from across
the province for their
continued hard work and dedication.

RESOLUTION NO. 1229

By: Hon. Rodney MacDonald (Tourism, Culture and Heritage)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas volunteers are of vital importance to all of our communities; and

Whereas the 2004 Provincial Volunteer Awards were presented to individuals from across
Nova Scotia at the Provincial
Volunteer Award Ceremony and Dinner on April 12th at the Westin Hotel to pay
tribute to the thousands of Nova Scotians
whose generosity and compassion help to create a better future for us all; and

Whereas Annie Rose Chiasson has been selected by the County of Inverness as its Volunteer
of the Year for her long-standing and unselfish commitment to her community as a volunteer in
many capacities;

Therefore be it resolved that the members of this House extend congratulations to Annie
Rose Chiasson for being named a
Provincial Representative Volunteer for 2004 and offer thanks to Ms. Chiasson and volunteers
from across the province for
their continued hard work and dedication.

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas volunteers are of vital importance to all of our communities; and

Whereas the 2004 Provincial Volunteer Awards were presented to individuals from across
Nova Scotia at the Provincial
Volunteer Award Ceremony and Dinner on April 12th at the Westin Hotel to pay
tribute to the thousands of Nova Scotians
whose generosity and compassion help to create a better future for us all; and

Whereas Tim Thompson has been selected by the Town of Port Hawkesbury as its Volunteer
of the Year for his long-standing and unselfish commitment to his community as a volunteer in
many capacities;

Therefore be it resolved that the members of this House extend congratulations to Tim
Thompson for being named a
Provincial Representative Volunteer for 2004 and offer thanks to Mr. Thompson and volunteers
from across the province for
their continued hard work and dedication.

RESOLUTION NO. 1231

By: Hon. Murray Scott (Speaker)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas volunteers are of vital importance to all of our communities; and

Whereas the 2004 Provincial Volunteer Awards were presented to individuals from across
Nova Scotia at the Provincial
Volunteer Award Ceremony and Dinner on April 12th at the Westin Hotel to pay
tribute to the thousands of Nova Scotians
whose generosity and compassion help to create a better future for us all; and

Whereas Edith Purdy has been selected by Cumberland County as its Volunteer of the Year
for her long-standing and
unselfish commitment to her community as a volunteer in many capacities;

Therefore be it resolved that the members of this House extend congratulations to Edith
Purdy for being named a Provincial
Representative Volunteer for 2004 and offer thanks to Ms. Purdy and volunteers from across the
province for their
continued hard work and dedication.

RESOLUTION NO. 1232

By: Hon. Murray Scott (Speaker)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas volunteers are of vital importance to all of our communities; and

Whereas the 2004 Provincial Volunteer Awards were presented to individuals from across
Nova Scotia at the Provincial
Volunteer Award Ceremony and Dinner on April 12th at the Westin Hotel to pay
tribute to the thousands of Nova Scotians
whose generosity and compassion help to create a better future for us all; and

Whereas John Lucas has been selected by the Town of Parrsboro as its Volunteer of the Year
for his long-standing and
unselfish commitment to his community as a volunteer in many capacities;

Therefore be it resolved that the members of this House extend congratulations to John Lucas
for being named a Provincial
Representative Volunteer for 2004 and offer thanks to Mr. Lucas and volunteers from across the
province for their
continued hard work and dedication.

RESOLUTION NO. 1233

By: Hon. Murray Scott (Speaker)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas volunteers are of vital importance to all of our communities; and

Whereas the 2004 Provincial Volunteer Awards were presented to individuals from across
Nova Scotia at the Provincial
Volunteer Award Ceremony and Dinner on April 12th at the Westin Hotel to pay
tribute to the thousands of Nova Scotians
whose generosity and compassion help to create a better future for us all; and

Whereas Jean Dickson has been selected by the Town of Springhill as its Volunteer of the
Year for her long-standing and
unselfish commitment to her community as a volunteer in many capacities;

Therefore be it resolved that the members of this House extend congratulations to Jean
Dickson for being named a
Provincial Representative Volunteer for 2004 and offer thanks to Ms. Dickson and volunteers
from across the province for
their continued hard work and dedication.

RESOLUTION NO. 1234

By: Mr. William Dooks (Eastern Shore)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas small businesses account for more than 70 per cent of jobs in this province; and

Whereas small businesses are the lifeblood of our rural communities and play a significant role
in growing the economy here
in Nova Scotia; and

Whereas ICON Electric and Control Inc. in Porters Lake is one such company that is making
a positive contribution to the
economy of the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia;

Therefore be it resolved that the members of this House join me in recognizing ICON Electric
and Control Inc. in Porters
Lake for all the contributions it makes to Nova Scotia, particularly the Eastern Shore.

RESOLUTION NO. 1235

By: Mr. William Dooks (Eastern Shore)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas RESPECT day was held on April 14th at Gaetz Brook Junior High
School; and

Whereas this event is a collaborative effort between Gaetz Brook Junior High School and
Youth Against Racism, a program
of the Multicultural Association of Nova Scotia and funded by the Metro United Way;

Therefore be it resolved that all members of this House recognize the importance of
RESPECT day and extend our support
to this worthwhile effort to expose students to broad social issues and foster an inclusive,
respectful environment.

RESOLUTION NO. 1236

By: Hon. Murray Scott (Speaker)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas Justin Embree of Springhill, a member of the Springhill Junior Boys Basketball
Team was honoured at the
Basketball Association's award night in April 2004; and

Whereas Justin shared the award for the Most Valuable Player for his team this year; and

Whereas Justin has made a strong contribution to the Springhill Junior Boys Basketball Team
and earned the title of Most
Valuable Player;

Therefore be it resolved that the members of this House congratulate Justin Embree on this
outstanding award and wish him
all the best and continued success in the future.

RESOLUTION NO. 1237

By: Hon. Murray Scott (Speaker)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas Matt Ellis of Springhill, a member of the Springhill Junior Boys Basketball Team
was honoured at the Basketball
Association's award night in April 2204; and

Whereas Matt was honoured with the award for the Top Scholar Athlete for his team this
year; and

Whereas Matt has made a strong contribution to the Springhill Junior Boys Basketball Team
and has worked hard to help
make his team a strong force;

Therefore be it resolved that all MLAs of this House commend Chief Jonathan Wort, the
executive and firefighters from the
Upper Stewiacke Fire Department for their passion and zeal in responding to alarms when
required.

RESOLUTION NO. 1240

By: Mr. Brooke Taylor (Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas firefighters are the lifeblood of rural Nova Scotia communities who are called out at
any given time of the day or
night; and

Whereas the Brookfield Fire Department answers a number of local alarms annually while
always being ready to assist fellow
fire departments with mutual aid assistance; and

Whereas the Brookfield Fire Department held their annual awards banquet and ceremony on
March 6th;

Therefore be it resolved that all MLAs of this House commend Chief Rod Neilsen, the
executive and firefighters from the
Brookfield Fire Department for their passion and zeal in responding to alarms when required.

RESOLUTION NO. 1241

By: Mr. Brooke Taylor (Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas firefighters are the lifeblood of rural Nova Scotia communities who are called out at
any given time of the day or
night; and

Whereas the Middle Musquodoboit Fire Department answers a number of local alarms
annually while always being ready to
assist fellow fire departments with mutual aid assistance; and

Whereas the Middle Musquodoboit Fire Department held their annual awards banquet and
ceremony on April 3rd;

Therefore be it resolved that all MLAs of this House commend Chief Craig Ruggles, the
executive and firefighters from the
Middle Musquodoboit Fire Department for their passion and zeal in responding to alarms when
required.

RESOLUTION NO. 1242

By: Hon. Angus MacIsaac (Health)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas Nova Scotia's brightest young scientific minds and innovators gathered last week for
the Team Nova Scotia
Showcase; and

Whereas the students who will represent Nova Scotia at the Canada-wide Science Fair had
the opportunity to display their
award-winning projects at this signature event of Nova Scotia Youth Experiences in Science;
and

Therefore be it resolved that the members of this House congratulate Suzanne Swaine on
being selected to represent the
province at the Canada-Wide Science Fair and wish her much success at this event.

RESOLUTION NO. 1243

By: Hon. Angus MacIsaac (Health)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas Nova Scotia's brightest young scientific minds and innovators gathered last week for
the Team Nova Scotia
Showcase; and

Whereas the students who will represent Nova Scotia at the Canada-wide Science Fair had
the opportunity to display their
award-winning projects at this signature event of Nova Scotia Youth Experiences in Science;
and

Whereas St. Andrew Junior High School Grade 8 student Adam Hinchey presented his
project, The Full Meal Deal;

Therefore be it resolved that the members of this House congratulate Adam Hinchey on being
selected to represent the
province at the Canada-Wide Science Fair and wish him much success at this event.

RESOLUTION NO. 1244

By: Hon. James Muir (Education)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas Nova Scotia's brightest young scientific minds and innovators gathered last week for
the Team Nova Scotia
Showcase; and

Whereas the students who will represent Nova Scotia at the Canada-wide Science Fair had
the opportunity to display their
award-winning projects at this signature event of Nova Scotia Youth Experiences in Science;
and

Therefore be it resolved that the members of this House congratulate Jenna McNeil on being
selected to represent the
province at the Canada-Wide Science Fair and wish her much success at this event.

RESOLUTION NO. 1245

By: Hon. James Muir (Education)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas Nova Scotia's brightest young scientific minds and innovators gathered last week for
the Team Nova Scotia
Showcase; and

Whereas the students who will represent Nova Scotia at the Canada-wide Science Fair had
the opportunity to display their
award-winning projects at this signature event of Nova Scotia Youth Experiences in Science;
and

Therefore be it resolved that the members of this House congratulate Megan Crouse on being
selected to represent the
province at the Canada-Wide Science Fair and wish her much success at this event.

RESOLUTION NO. 1246

By: Hon. James Muir (Education)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas Nova Scotia's brightest young scientific minds and innovators gathered last week for
the Team Nova Scotia
Showcase; and

Whereas the students who will represent Nova Scotia at the Canada-wide Science Fair had
the opportunity to display their
award-winning projects at this signature event of Nova Scotia Youth Experiences in Science;
and

Therefore be it resolved that the members of this House congratulate Krystal-lynn Laforest on
being selected to represent the
province at the Canada-Wide Science Fair and wish her much success at this event.

RESOLUTION NO. 1247

By: Hon. James Muir (Education)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas Nova Scotia's brightest young scientific minds and innovators gathered last week for
the Team Nova Scotia
Showcase; and

Whereas the students who will represent Nova Scotia at the Canada-wide Science Fair had
the opportunity to display their
award-winning projects at this signature event of Nova Scotia Youth Experiences in Science;
and

Whereas Truro Junior High School Grade 8 student Rachel Ritacco presented her project,
Less Is More;

Therefore be it resolved that the members of this House congratulate Rachel Ritacco on being
selected to represent the
province at the Canada-Wide Science Fair and wish her much success at this event.

RESOLUTION NO. 1248

By: Hon. Richard Hurlburt (Natural Resources)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas Nova Scotia's brightest young scientific minds and innovators gathered last week for
the Team Nova Scotia
Showcase; and

Whereas the students who will represent Nova Scotia at the Canada-wide Science Fair had
the opportunity to display their
award-winning projects at this signature event of Nova Scotia Youth Experiences in Science;
and

Therefore be it resolved that the members of this House congratulate Aaron LeBlanc on being
selected to represent the
province at the Canada-Wide Science Fair and wish him much success at this event.

RESOLUTION NO. 1249

By: Hon. Kerry Morash (Environment and Labour)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas Nova Scotia's brightest young scientific minds and innovators gathered last week for
the Team Nova Scotia
Showcase; and

Whereas the students who will represent Nova Scotia at the Canada-wide Science Fair had
the opportunity to display their
award-winning projects at this signature event of Nova Scotia Youth Experiences in Science;
and

Therefore be it resolved that the members of this House congratulate Geoffrey Mason on
being selected to represent the
province at the Canada-Wide Science Fair and wish him much success at this event.

RESOLUTION NO. 1250

By: Hon. Carolyn Bolivar-Getson (Human Resources)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas Nova Scotia's brightest young scientific minds and innovators gathered last week for
the Team Nova Scotia
Showcase; and

Whereas the students who will represent Nova Scotia at the Canada-wide Science Fair had
the opportunity to display their
award-winning projects at this signature event of Nova Scotia Youth Experiences in Science;
and

Therefore be it resolved that the members of this House congratulate Luke Rae and Matthew
Baxter on being selected to
represent the province at the Canada-Wide Science Fair and wish them much success at this
event.

RESOLUTION NO. 1251

By: Mr. Mark Parent (Kings North)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas Nova Scotia's brightest young scientific minds and innovators gathered last week for
the Team Nova Scotia
Showcase; and

Whereas the students who will represent Nova Scotia at the Canada-wide Science Fair had
the opportunity to display their
award-winning projects at this signature event of Nova Scotia Youth Experiences in Science;
and

Whereas Horton High School Grade 12 students Ian Dugas and Jaime McDonald presented
their project, Bugs and
Blueberries;

Therefore be it resolved that the members of this House congratulate Ian Dugas and Jaime
McDonald on being selected to
represent the province at the Canada-Wide Science Fair and wish them much success at this
event.

RESOLUTION NO. 1252

By: Mr. Mark Parent (Kings North)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas Nova Scotia's brightest young scientific minds and innovators gathered last week for
the Team Nova Scotia
Showcase; and

Whereas the students who will represent Nova Scotia at the Canada-wide Science Fair had
the opportunity to display their
award-winning projects at this signature event of Nova Scotia Youth Experiences in Science;
and

Therefore be it resolved that all MLAs of this House commend the executive and firefighters
from the Black Point Fire
Department for their passion and zeal in responding to alarms when required.

RESOLUTION NO. 1254

By: Mr. John Chataway (Chester-St. Margaret's)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas firefighters are summoned in times of need regardless of the time of day or night;
and

Whereas the Chester Basin Fire Department answers a number of alarms annually; and

Whereas a community without the dedication of volunteer firefighters would be a community
at great risk because of the
uncertainty of when an emergency can arise;

Therefore be it resolved that all MLAs of this House commend the executive and firefighters
from the Chester Basin Fire
Department for their excellent response in times of need while wishing them continued
success.

RESOLUTION NO. 1255

By: Mr. John Chataway (Chester-St. Margaret's)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas firefighters are summoned in times of need regardless of the time of day or night;
and

Whereas the District No. 1 Blandford Fire Department answers a number of alarms annually;
and

Whereas a community without the dedication of volunteer firefighters would be a community
at great risk because of the
uncertainty of when an emergency can arise;

Therefore be it resolved that all MLAs of this House commend the executive and firefighters
from the District No. 1
Blandford Fire Department for their excellent response in times of need while wishing them
continued success.

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas firefighters are summoned in times of need regardless of the time of day or night;
and

Whereas the Hubbards Fire Department answers a number of alarms annually; and

Whereas a community without the dedication of volunteer firefighters would be a community
at great risk because of the
uncertainty of when an emergency can arise;

Therefore be it resolved that all MLAs of this House commend the executive and firefighters
from the Hubbards Fire
Department for their excellent response in times of need while wishing them continued
success.

RESOLUTION NO. 1257

By: Mr. John Chataway (Chester-St. Margaret's)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas firefighters are summoned in times of need regardless of the time of day or night;
and

Whereas the Seabright Fire Department answers a number of alarms annually; and

Whereas a community without the dedication of volunteer firefighters would be a community
at great risk because of the
uncertainty of when an emergency can arise;

Therefore be it resolved that all MLAs of this House commend the executive and firefighters
from the Seabright Fire
Department for their excellent response in times of need while wishing them continued
success.

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas firefighters are the lifeblood of rural Nova Scotia communities who are called out at
any given time of the day or
night; and

Whereas the Chester Fire Department answers a number of local alarms annually, including
crashes on Highway No. 103,
while always being ready to assist fellow fire departments with mutual aid assistance; and

Whereas a community without the devotion of volunteer firefighters would be a community
living on the edge, not knowing
whom they could call at a time of peril or distress;

Therefore be it resolved that all MLAs of this House commend the executive and firefighters
from the Chester Fire
Department for their passion and zeal in responding to alarms when required.

RESOLUTION NO. 1261

By: Mr. Cecil O'Donnell (Shelburne)

I hereby give notice that on a future day I shall move the adoption of the following
resolution:

Whereas Clark's Harbour resident and sports enthusiast Chris Swim has developed his own
sports Web site; and

Whereas this Web site is and will continue to be a wealth of information on the Shelburne
County sports scene; and

Whereas Chris' Web site just went online less than three months ago and already has more
than 2,250 hits;

Therefore be it resolved that members of this House of Assembly congratulate Clark's
Harbour's Chris Swim on his
ingenuity and wish him every success as he promotes Shelburne County sports through
information technology.